


Wild is the Wind

by manticoremoons



Category: Little Mix (Band), One Direction (Band)
Genre: Anxiety, Comedy of Ridiculous Errors, Depression, Divorce, F/M, Fluff, Gen, Light Bondage, M/M, Non-Negotiated Kink, Praise Kink, Romantic Comedy, Somewhat, Suicide, sometimes i, warnings for mention of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-24
Updated: 2014-02-24
Packaged: 2018-01-13 15:13:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 24,175
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1231159
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/manticoremoons/pseuds/manticoremoons
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everybody's favourite BBC Lifestyle pastry chef, Harry Styles has never in his life met up with a challenge he couldn’t conquer. But he might have one in his best friend, Zayn Malik, too-serious television writer who’s gotten into a bit of a funk after the end of his seven-year marriage (one which he thought was perfectly blissful until his sweet-as-anything former wife, Perrie, served him his papers and that should tell you a lot about the kind of person Zayn is, actually). Harry, who considers himself something of an amateur matchmaker (he’s set up loads of his other friends, he's brilliant at it basically), believes he can help get him back in the groove—or at least get him laid. </p><p>But of course, that’s when everything goes to shit.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wild is the Wind

**Author's Note:**

> Imagine, if you will, that Harry Styles is a modern-day Emma Woodhouse to Zayn’s rather stoic and complicated Knightley. That's how this started, it sort of flew away from me though. And that all the boys met at university and became best of friends. Everyone’s in their early thirties, unless they’re a little bit older.
> 
> This isn't my big bang. Which, is just embarrassing that I'm posting this and not the story I'd hoped to finish at this time. We'll see if I can get the other done on time. See the end for more on this matter. I hope you will at least enjoy this offering.
> 
> Thanks very much to the two really great betas who jumped in to read this really quickly when they didn't have to. Listen to Nina Simone's Wild is the Wind at some point, it says everything this fic wishes it could. Or listen to Rosi Golan's Come Around, as that was almost the title of this sucker for the exact same reasons.

It all starts on an uncomfortably warm summer’s day in a small café on the posh side of Camden. A young writer is hunched over a boxy-looking Dell™ laptop, one of those conscientious Apple™ objectors that nobody likes, his hair flopping into bespectacled eyes while he scratches at his light beard. He’s got the characteristic pallor of someone who spends far too much time inside, there are noticeable bags under his eyes and his dark locks are mussed on the top of his head like he runs his fingers through it a lot.

But he’s still probably the most physically stunning person in the room. Possibly in this hemisphere but that might require some kind of verification process Harry really hasn’t got the time for.

He pushes through the glass door and whips off his sunglasses with a sigh, drags his hair out of his eyes. It’s not a calculated move by any means but he doesn’t miss the way a good eight people in the dining area stop what they’re doing to just stare at him for a beat or two, expressions varying from admiring to envious to downright salacious in the space of a few square metres.

He’s been turning heads since he was seventeen, and it’s not that arrogant to admit that he likes it. Revels in it, even. And a few of them probably recognise him from the show or are trying to place him anyways so it’s not all vanity. He tosses a wink at the cute woman standing in line for the counter and throws in a dimpled grin for the guy manning the cash register, and makes his way to his best friend.

Normal people might greet each other with a ‘hello’ or a ‘how are you’—Harry skips all that and throws his arms around Zayn’s shoulders, burrows his face into his neck to place a sloppy kiss at the rather nice-smelling patch of skin there.

Zayn, who is usually pernickety about physical contact with anyone he doesn’t know very well, doesn’t even offer up a squeak of surprise because he knows exactly who it is.

“Ugh, get off me, you ridiculous human being.”

Harry pulls back to throw himself into the chair opposite, pretended offence dripping from his tongue. “Rude, is that any way to greet your very best friend in the whole entire universe?”

Zayn frowns. But the effect is destroyed a bit by the twitch of his mouth. “I’m fairly sure that Louis or possibly Niall would fight you for that title.”

Rolling his eyes, Harry picks up the menu. “Please, we all know Louis’ your brother from another mother or whatever you two used to call it and Niall’s the little brother you never had and Liam’s your superhero sidekick but _I’ve_ always been your secret favourite.”

Zayn’s frown lasts all of five seconds before it collapses under the weight of his grin, his eyes warm as melting chocolate and slightly crinkly at the edges. He doesn’t deny it though. And Harry tries to keep his smugness to the bare minimum. It was a foregone conclusion, really. He’s always been everyone’s favourite—from his Granny Sophie who’d chucked him under the chin at age three and declared it so to the portly mailman who brings fan-mail round to his flat twice a week and always lingers for a cup of tea and scones afterwards while he shares all the ridiculous exploits of the other people he delivers to on his circuit. He’s the youngest of two, and he’s always known he’s his mum’s little boy and never minded that she couldn’t choose between him and his sister, Gem because between the three of them, they’re all each other’s favourite person so it all works out quite well.

Flipping his computer shut, it makes an ornery whoosh at that, Zayn says, “I’m surprised you could fit me in your schedule, Mr Hotshot BBC Lifestyle Show of the Year winner. Congratulations, babe.”

Harry gives a mock bow and smiles at the praise with a thankful tilt of his head.

He’s proud of what he’s done on the BBC Lifestyle channel. Ten years ago when he’d declined every offer he got at top law firms around the country in favour of going back to Holmes Chapel to work in the town’s only bakery, he wouldn’t have predicted that he’d end up having his own show, _Harry’s Oven_ , and that people would actually watch it _and_ love it. But apparently the combination of his dimples and curly hair, penchant for naming his pastries after various sexual positions and willingness to bake in nothing but an apron was a big hit with mums and dads and teenagers everywhere: “this generation’s Jamie Oliver without the unfortunate pasty face” one reviewer said. The last look at the ratings even said he was doing well in the over sixties demo, which was quite special as he’d learned everything he knew about baking from a septuagenarian named Barbara.

“You’re one to talk, hasn’t that six-episode zombies in space show you wrote for E4 been shortlisted for a TV BAFTA?”

Zayn shrugs, a shy blush rising up on his cheeks, the one he gets when anything resembling praise is tossed his way. “I didn’t write it all by myself, you know.”

That’s one of those things Harry’s always loved about Zayn. He’s maybe one of the most brilliant, certainly the most handsome, people in existence. But he’s also the most humble. And never with all that self-effacing kindness does it feel like an act. It’s just how he is. A good thing he has friends who are more than ready to tell him how great he is all the time or else he just might go around actually thinking he was average, which would be a tragedy.

“I refuse to believe that when I saw the first draft of _The Goners_ over a decade ago stuffed under your mattress in our room at uni,” he says knowingly. "Although I think it was vampires and not zombies then, right?"

And the surprised but pleased little grin Zayn gives at that makes it worth it that he remembered that inane detail from all those years ago.

Zayn tips his head at the menu. “I ordered for us already, by the way.”

Narrowing his eyes at the menu that he hasn’t really bothered to read, Harry asks, “And just how do you know what I want, Malik? I’m not sure I like this overbearing attitude you have with your dates.”

“Very funny,” Zayn says with a roll of his long-lashed eyes. “I know what you like, mate. Greek salad, no olives, extra cucumber, a shaving of feta and a disgusting side of chopped pineapple with the club sandwich, no bacon, that you won’t even be able to finish because you’ll get too full. But you will have the leftovers put in a baggie to give your friend, Charlie, who hangs out on the corner of Stratham and First Streets singing Genesis covers for a few pence a day.”

The accuracy of that summation should be unnerving. But Harry’s at the stage where he and Zayn, and their three best friends, probably have overshared too much over the years.

“Thank you,” Harry says, “Although, I ought to just throw you off one of these days and ask for a spicy chicken sandwich.”

Zayn lets out a chuckle. “Why bother with that when you’ll just steal some of mine?”

And that’s—well, that’s true actually. Harry’s pretty renowned for stealing food off of plates in his vicinity and Zayn’s well-used to it by now. It’s not Harry’s fault that he has good taste, is it?

When the waiter brings their food and drinks, a strawberry smoothie for Harry, and a latte for Zayn, that’s really when it all starts.

Zayn’s reaching for the ketchup in the basket that sits at the centre of the table when he knocks over his cutlery. It hits the floor with a loud clatter. He apologises at no one in particular and immediately bends down to pick it up and somehow manages to catch his elbow on the corner of his cup, and then his foamy latte tips over and spills in a steaming milky lake on the table.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” he mutters as he comes up with his fallen cutlery and then tries to mop ineffectually at the puddle with his serviette.

The waiter pops up and tries to help but then Zayn accidentally elbows him in the hip, causing the poor man to grunt and wince while he bends over to swipe at the mess with a gamely smile on his face.

Harry just gapes. Because Zayn’s a lot of things—a terrible dancer unless he’s flying high on enough weed to bring out the rhythm in his hips, a rubbish pool player, a truly awful cook even—but clumsy and graceless isn’t one of them.

Unless he’s tense or nervous about something. Too much on his mind, which happened a lot with him because he tended to get stuck in his head a lot and it manifested in a sudden failure to walk without tripping or bumping into the nearest object like a drunken new-born colt.

Reaching out to still Zayn’s hands, which are now flapping ineffectually and getting in the way of the solicitous waiter, Harry asks, “Whoa, what’s going on with you?”

“Nothing,” Zayn says in that flat way he has when he’s trying to avoid a conversation like the proverbial plague. He looks at the waiter and breathes out a remorseful, “Thanks, I think we’re fine now,” before going back to avoiding looking at anything and anyone.

Harry leans back in his chair and folds his arms across his chest. “Okay? Because you seem a little tense—come on, out with it.”

“I told you, Harry, I’m fine—doing great, like brilliant even. Not tense at all.” He tries to force cheerfulness into each word until he sounds a bit shrill and the smile on his face is stretched too wide to be believable or comfortable to look at really.

“See, now I know you’re lying because you’d never use the words ‘great’ and ‘brilliant’ to describe how you’re feeling—you hate being redundant, remember.”

Zayn looks like he wants to lob one of his spiced chicken breasts across the table before he lets out a heavy sigh and shrugs, “I just—there’s nothing wrong, you know? I’m, like, I don’t know. Stressed, like. All the time. It’s probably lack of sleep or something, you know how I am. But yeah, just, yeah.”

Harry doesn’t bother to point out how not-informative that was because he has an idea Zayn knows from the way he’s looking at him with desperate eyes, like he really wants Harry to solve this problem without making a big deal out of it.

“Are things going badly at work?”

Zayn shakes his head.

“Is something wrong with the family?”

“No, they’re all fine. My mum actually mentioned you the other day, she wants you to come over to learn how to make some of those fusion pastries she was telling you about,” he says it with a mock-glare. Zayn’s been suspicious of what he calls the Unholy Alliance of Dimpled People since the very first time he brought Harry to stay over at his house in Bradford during the holidays in their second year at uni.

“Oh, tell her I’ll come by next weekend.”

“You can tell her yourself.” He sounds a bit pouty with it. “You probably talk to her more often than I do.”

Grabbing a pineapple segment, Harry just smirks, he’s always been Trisha’s favourite too.

“So if it’s not any of those things what’s going on?” Zayn still looks like he wishes Harry would just leave it alone already. But Harry’s always been fairly useless at that so he asks point-blank, “Okay, when was the last time you had sex?”

“Harry,” Zayn groans, “Not all problems can be solved with sexual intercourse.”

“The fact that you just used the term ‘sexual intercourse’ is disturbing in and of itself. Seriously, when was the last time you fucked anyone?”

Zayn furrows his brow and looks off into the distance, does that thing where he rubs his thumb across his chin because he’s thinking so hard, and Harry has to roll his eyes.

“Oh my god, you look like you’re trying to remember the Dark Ages, next you’ll be telling me that the last person you had sex with was Perrie.”

Zayn’s eyes widen before he drops them to the table with a mortified half-smile, half-frown.

“Jesus Christ, Zayn!”

“There’s no need to make it sound like it’s that bad—.”

“Perrie and you split up for good over a year-and-a-half ago. It _is_ that bad.”

“Well you make it seem like I’ve committed a serious human rights violation or something.” Zayn’s got that adorable sullen mouse in the sun look to him as though he’s been deeply offended by the turn of events but is far too lazy to bother saying so.

“You have! Against yourself and your poor hand. And also all the hundreds of people that would rather be fucking you as we speak.”

Zayn gives a doubtful snort, “Hundreds? Sure, Harry, sure.”

Normally, Harry would go on expressing his shocked horror by ribbing Zayn and his newfound chastity for at least the full course of lunch. But he notices the way Zayn’s picking nervously at the edge of the coffee table cloth, avoiding eye contact and gnawing on the inside of his mouth. All tell-tale signs he’s learned to parse over the years—partly out of necessity because Zayn can be an uncommunicative bastard who tends to show his emotions in esoteric and not-always-comprehensible ways (like shutting a book exceptionally hard when he’s really angry or frowning at a perfect 67-degree-angle when he’s trying not to cry). And if he hadn’t bothered to learn how to read him properly they’d never have made it as friends beyond graduating from uni. Hell, they wouldn’t have made it past the first month of rooming together as freshers.

And also because, well, Harry’s always had a ‘way’ with Zayn. He’s moody and a bit of an oddball and not everyone’s got the patience to deal with his crap is the thing. Most people can’t, really.

Niall, Mr Sunshine and Smiles doesn’t always get why one of his awful jokes or the promise of a round of craic at one of the five pubs he owns around London isn’t a good enough reason to pull a person out of a funk. He’s perfect for a pick-me-up but isn’t always so great at sticking around when said pick-me-up doesn’t do the trick.

Liam tends to approach people’s issues and crises like they’re an engineering problem that can be solved by frowning at them excessively and coming up with a workable solution. Provided nobody’s injured and there is a viable fire escape, he figures that’s well and good enough. It’s good having Liam around, he’s the most practical one out of the lot of them and sometimes the answer to x + y really is z and they all need to be reminded of that. He’s always been best with things that involved his hands anyway and doling out sufficiently pitiful puppy-dog looks until someone takes pity on him and _just stops being sad_. Which isn’t often possible but Liam’s always had pretty lethal puppy eyes.

Even Louis, who’s arguably the exact same person as Zayn would occasionally give up, toss his hands up in the air, call Harry on his mobile and without even so much as a hello snap, “Get over here and deal with him,” into the speaker before hanging up.

Granted, that had been at some of the worst moments of the _Great Break-Up of 2023_ , the weeks just after Perrie moved out for real, when Zayn’d taken to shutting himself up in a darkened room for days on end, ignoring all calls and flurried knocks on the door in favour of drowning himself in Jack Daniel's and sorrow.

Harry’d been the one to snag a copy of the flat key from Perrie, creep through the house, silent as a tomb, and opened the door to find a Zayn-shaped mound of blankets unmoving in the darkened bedroom. He’d been the one who’d not yelled or cajoled, he’d just toed off his boots and climbed into bed, spooned Zayn from behind and fallen asleep while trying not to wrinkle his nose at the sharp whiff of alcohol and the more pleasantly familiar sweat that hung like a cloud above the pillows and sheets.

When Zayn finally acknowledged his presence in bed with him the next day or so afterward with a grunt that promptly turned into full-body sobs, he’d been the one to just hold him while he let it all out. He’d even cried with him because Harry’d always been the kind to burst into tears the minute he even caught the scent of salt-water in someone’s eyes. And he couldn’t not cry as he watched his friend, the wreckage of him, slowly but surely mourn what he’d lost.

And he’d been the one to feed Zayn spoonfuls of homemade soup while he sat listless in his mountain of blankets and pale blue sheets, his eyes dulled as burnished bronze coins. Wiped him up when he dribbled soup down his chin because he didn’t even have it in him to open his mouth properly. He’d shaved him carefully and quickly by the sink in his bathroom when Zayn’s beard had started to resemble a small, out-of-control hedge. Hell, he even clipped his fingernails once and stolen a laugh, one of those quiet crinkly-eyed giggles Zayn saved for something really funny, when he’d threatened to paint them bright red for fun.

It was like the end of what he’d had with Perrie—or what he thought he’d had with her—had pretty much destroyed him. Gouged out everything that constituted Zayn and left a wraith in his place. And those weeks and months after, he needed to re-remember, rebuild himself one block at a time until he was somewhat whole again. Still cracked in spots, and empty in others, but him.

It hadn’t been pretty. Or fun.

So when Harry sees Zayn’s anxious fiddling, he doesn’t need a degree to interpret everything he’s not saying with that question.

“Is that what it is, then? You think people don't want to sleep with you?” The idea is so absurd that Harry has to bite the insides of his mouth to keep from laughing because this is serious.

Zayn shrugs.

“Oh wow, you do.”

“Don’t look at me like I’m a big loser.” Zayn holds out his hand for good measure. “I just—I needed time, and it’s weird, trying to be single when you’ve been married for like a decade. I haven’t always been good at that stuff—well, I wasn’t really ever good with it, yeah?”

Harry can’t commiserate. He’d thought Zayn was insane to even contemplate getting married at twenty-two much as he and Perrie had been perfect for each other at the time. He’d told him so on many occasions but Zayn had been young and in love and completely stubborn with it.

And he does know just how awkward Zayn used to be about dating and girls and boys back in school before he’d met the love of his life. Too shy, self-conscious that he’d say the wrong thing, too twitchy at the prospect of having to do the whole get-to-know-you thing with strangers. That’s the thing with Zayn, he isn’t too good in big groups and he comes off as a bit standoffish on first meets. But once he lets you in, once he feels comfortable enough to let you in, to peel back the too-beautiful, too-solemn outer layers, he’s like a gift that keeps on giving. Like a Kinder™ egg or something.

In contrast, Harry’s always been a pretty great flirt. Everyone loves him from the minute they meet him pretty much or it takes a few minutes to win them over. Most people call it “charm” but honestly, he’s just always been genuinely curious about the world around him and the people in it, and incapable of not asking questions while he listens to every word they have to say with both ears open. And it seems to go down well wherever he goes, so.

He isn’t sure how to help Zayn so he suggests, cautiously, “Well, maybe you should start off slow then. A date or something. Nothing too strenuous.”

Zayn’s rubbing at his chin again when he says offhandedly, “I may have went on a date a couple of nights ago.”

Harry stops short. “You went on a date, and I didn’t know?” It’s an unreasonable ask to know the ins and outs of Zayn’s dating life but still this is a big deal, it’s usually the type of thing that he’d know about. Maybe. Okay, not really. But still, he’d have liked to know just to be there to offer moral support, help Zayn pick out the right outfit and watch him go off on his first proper date since the Break-Up like a proud parent seeing their kid off to a leavers’ dance.

Zayn looks a bit harassed as he runs his fingers through his hair. “Hey, you were busy and like I was busy and it didn’t seem like the right time to bring it up when we all met up for drinks at Niall’s last week, all right?”

Resisting the urge to sulk, Harry asks, “How did your date go? Wait, first of all, who was your date _with_? Anyone I know?”

Opting to ignore Harry’s petulance, thankfully, Zayn answers, “I think you’ve met him once or twice, Richard Rundell from Advertising?”

“Really,” Harry tries not to sound peevish, “Richard?”

He knows Richard. Actually, quite well since there’s a bit of overlap in some of the BBC’s departments, and you’re bound to run into at least everyone at Christmas parties and the like. He’s not a bad sort. Just kind of smarmy and big-headed, has a habit of smiling too much and Harry’s fairly sure he fake tans all year round.

“What’s wrong with Richard?”

“I don’t know he’s just sort of… there, isn’t he?”

And seriously, Zayn could have anyone in the world and he goes for the _dullest_ guy he could possibly pick. Probably.

“He’s a very smart guy, thank you very much,” Zayn says defensively and with that stubborn tilt to his chin that he gets when he’s digging in his heels on some issue that isn’t even important.

Before things can get too crazy, Harry says quickly, “All right, he’s a ‘smart’ guy. How’d it go?”

Zayn loses his pugnacious posture and slumps back in his seat, “Not too good, actually.” He rushes on to explain, “It was just. We went to dinner and he was one of the pickiest eaters I’ve ever met. I mean, pickier than you. And he was kind of a dick to the waitress, which was just off-putting. Then I invited him over for a drink—.”

“Oh, a drink, eh?” Harry can’t resist interrupting, he raises his brows suggestively, “Look at you putting out on the first date.”

“I wasn’t putting out on the first date, all right?” Zayn insists, “I just thought it’d be the nice thing to do.”

And this is why Harry often wonders how Zayn’s been able to survive even a day in the world without him to guide him on the social mores of the current times. It’s like watching a bumbling Skywalker try to figure things out without Obi-Wan Kenobi sometimes, it can’t end well for anyone.

“You do realise that inviting someone up to your flat for a nightcap is an invitation to fucking on the sofa. Or the living room carpet, right?”

“Not everyone thinks like that,” Zayn tries to protest.

“Did he try to kiss you?”

“We may have kissed. He may have wanted to do more than kissing,” Zayn admits, although his face is set in morose lines.

“And…?”

He looks a bit distressed and haunted as he shrugs. “I don’t, like, I just—I froze. It was like, the second he put his hands on my bum and tried to go for a deeper kiss, I just fucking froze like a block of ice. And then he tried to come in again and, like, I pushed him away so hard he fell off the couch and practically split his head open on the table.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

“If it’s any consolation, Richard from Advertising probably needs a knock on the head, he’s a bit of an arse.”

Zayn just chuckles softly. “Yeah, yeah he is.” The amusement doesn’t reach his eyes though.

If there’s anything Harry can’t handle, it’s Zayn when he’s not okay. He can’t handle anyone who’s not okay when it comes down to it. But Zayn (and often Niall) tend to cut him the deepest when they’re not at the very least content with their lives and the world around them, and he’s always hit by the uncontrollable desire to help them. In any way he can. Even if they don’t want or ask for it.

“Well, I can tell you one thing, going from zero to hero doesn’t really work for anyone, love.” He reaches across the table to grab Zayn’s hand, knuckled into a stony fist as it is, and waits until the joints relax under his palm. “You can’t just go from no dating and no sex to going on a date and trying to get off with the first person you meet.”

“That’s not—.”

“I know, that’s not what you meant to happen. But it did and maybe you should take it a bit slower.”

And then it hits him like a ton of bricks. And Harry’s not sure why he didn’t think of this sooner—like five minutes ago when this conversation started.

“I know exactly how to help you with this.”

He has an idea that his grin is a little too big because Zayn’s watching him warily and trying to pull his hand back surreptitiously from Harry’s excitable grasp.

“I’m a bit scared to hear it.”

“I’ll fix you up on a few dates.”

“A few dates?”

“Yeah, I think you just need to get on the horse again. It might throw you over a few times but once you get the hang of riding it again, you’ll be dating and hopefully fucking in no time.”

If it was anyone else other than Zayn, Harry might have suggested skipping the dating and heading straight for the sex. But he has a feeling Zayn’s been done with casual sex for a while, and the jump from married to straight-up fucking anything that moves might be a bit much for someone who can’t even kiss Loser Richard from Advertising without freezing up. No, it’s better if he slides into all of this gently, no rushing, it wasn’t a race. And just takes things at his own Zayn pace.

“I don’t know, Harry….”

“Oh come on, name one matchmaking situation that I’ve failed at in all the time you’ve known me?”

“Well, you tried to get Nick and Louis to date after Louis broke things off with Eleanor, look how that ended up?”

Harry holds up a finger. “First of all, Nick and Louis _did_ date for a while and they had the hottest sex of their lives together (testimony from both of them, gotten while drunk) but they just couldn’t make it work because they fought too much.”

Zayn concedes this point and thinks for a bit. “Okay, fine, what about Niall and Barbara? That was a mess.”

“Not my fault Niall decided he could date Barbara and her two hot friends simultaneously, mate.”

“Yeah, Niall was a bit of a dog in those days, wasn’t he?”

Harry sighs, that cock up had cost him free VIP entry into the Victoria’s Secret show to this very day. “It’s that Irish charm, apparently. It’s lethal the second he’s in a room with anything that moves.”

“All right, fine, I’ll let you help me,” Zayn sits back in his chair as if he’s too tired to come up with arguments against this stellar plan. It’s one of Harry’s favourite things about Zayn that if you can’t convince him of something immediately, there’s an 85% chance you’ll wear him out if you stick with it long enough. The 15% is reserved for those few times when Zayn chooses to be as stubborn as a billy goat and not let anything get by him. Harry’s grateful that this isn’t one of those times.

He stands up and leans over, careful not to spill anything, and presses a kiss to Zayn’s forehead. “Trust me, this is going to be brilliant. You’ll be back on the horse in no time!”

 

 

 

 

 

+++

“This is a horrible idea. Stop now, please before it’s too late.”

“Hey,” Harry protests as he accepts the tankard full of dark ale Niall passes to him over the counter.

It’s quiet yet at one of Niall’s pubs, Irish Charm, and there are only a few customers milling about watching a repeat of a Man U-Arsenal match and catching the last of the lunch hour. Niall’s in his shirt sleeves and suspenders, his dark blonde hair falling into his eyes every few seconds. It’s the most relaxed he ever gets on days when he’s not doing the rounds to all of his businesses like the young entrepreneur he is.

“Harry, remember what happened when you tried to fix me up?”

“That was all your fault, if I recall rightly.”

Niall gulps down his own beer and slams the cup down, a thin foam moustache on his upper lip and says, “Okay, I’ll give you that one. But this is not going to end well, I’m telling you.”

Harry pouts. Niall’s usually his partner in crime (PiC) in these sorts of things, just the way Zayn’s PiC is Louis in all things mischief and mayhem. Harry reckons it stemmed from the fact that the two of them were the youngest of the group, and that often meant bearing the brunt of everyone’s jokes and over-protectiveness. He and Niall were just always equals, brothers really, the babies that everyone liked to coddle too much so it only made sense that they’d be on each other’s sides in most things.

But not this time.

“Why isn’t it going to end well, though?” Harry’s whining. He knows it. But he doesn’t stop himself from doing so.

“Harry, it’s _Zayn_ ,” Niall says as though this is a perfectly adequate explanation for anything. At the blank look he gets, Niall just sighs and beckons with his fingers. “All right, who are you thinking of fixing him up with? Let’s hear it.”

Harry pulls his rather tatty leather-bound diary out of his back-pocket and opens it to a page titled, in scratchy blue ballpoint, **Project Zayn**.

The second Niall sees it, he slaps his face into his hands with a muffled, “Oh god, this is just going to be a fucking disaster.”

Choosing to ignore Niall’s uncustomary doom and gloom, Harry reads out his detailed list of prospects. Beside each name, he’s placed a short list of pros and cons and a tiny description of each person. It’s a very good list, in his opinion, he put a lot of effort into it the night before. Scrolling through his Facebook friends and WhatsApp groups to make sure he got as wide a selection as possible. It’s so good, he genuinely believes he should consider going into the matchmaking business after this no matter what naysayers like Niall believe.

 

 

> #### Alexa
> 
> #### Pros: she’s quirky and fun, and has really fantastic eyes
> 
> #### Cons: drinks like a fish and can be a bit overbearing sometimes
> 
> ####  _Alexa is a ~~really~~ smart part-time model who does a load of other things that I’m not quite clear on but it’s enough to get her in the papers a lot. She also dated that one singer from the Arctic Monkeys and was apparently so brilliant he wrote several albums about her._
> 
>  
> 
> #### Daisy
> 
> #### Pros: boobs, legs, general gorgeousness. BOOBS.
> 
> #### Cons: she smokes (which might make Zayn have a relapse, which would be awful after he’s spent seven years doing nothing but the occasional blunt at Louis’ New Year’s Birthday Bash)
> 
> ####  _Daisy is an actual model who also seems to be in the papers quite a bit. ~~Why are all my friends always tabloid fodder?~~ She’s very sexy. Like, she even makes me seem like an amateur. But we’ve dated so that might make things awkward._
> 
>  
> 
> #### Ben
> 
> #### Pros: he’s hot as fuck and he’s a director of concert films no one really watches, he’s smart too. We’ve never dated or fucked :(( but c’est la vie, maybe it was for this very reason!
> 
> #### Cons: he just separated from his wife so he might be in a bad space, Zayn doesn’t need that kind of baggage.
> 
> #### Ben’s the heir to some crazy family fortune and has lots of money in his own right, probably from making those films no one watches. He’s really handsome in that classy rugby player way ~~and maybe Zayn needs an older man to just take him in hand and show him what’s what and just really give it to him hard and raw~~. He’s a good listener.
> 
>  
> 
> #### Taylor
> 
> #### Pros: she’s American and makes the best apple pie, my god.
> 
> #### Cons: she’s American and is really bossy when we go for drunken karaoke.
> 
> ####  _Taylor’s a songwriter who splits her time between New York and London. She’s crazy smart and has fantastic legs, and a secretly kinky side if the drawer full of whips, furry handcuffs and ball gags I found in her bedroom at that one party she hosted a few months ago is anything to go by. I don’t know though. I just don’t think they’d be a good fit._
> 
>  

 

“Wow, you’re really taking this seriously,” Niall says with a low whistle as he reads the next two pages of potentials with a raised brow.

“Of course I’m taking this seriously,” Harry says earnestly. “It’s Zayn.”

And it’s true. He wants to help Zayn. He wants Zayn happy. And if it means trawling through all of his friends and friends of his friends to do it, then he will.

Niall closes the book carefully and narrows his eyes as though he’s preparing to say something that he knows Harry will hate but he’ll say it anyway because he’s Niall.

“It is Zayn. You’re taking it seriously and that’s exactly why I think you should stop while you’re ahead.”

Harry huffs, “I don’t know what you’re so worried about, and we all want Zayn to be happy, don’t we?”

“Of course we do, mate.” He gestures at the diary. “Just not sure this is the best way to go about that. For _you_ or _him_ , you know?” He’s got one of those significant looks on his face like he’s thinking something that he expects Harry to know off-hand by mental osmosis.

Harry snatches the book off the counter. “No, I don’t know but thank you for the unhelpful insights.”

The conversation is officially closed—youngest siblings have a way of picking up on that and letting things rest, they’ve discovered.

As Niall reaches for the keg so he can refill his mug, he says, voice deliberately casual, “So, that stuff you wrote in there about Taylor’s kinky drawer… that all true?”

 

 

 

 

 

+++

“Too formal, you don’t want to look like you’re trying too hard,” Harry says from his perch on Zayn’s bed while Zayn poses in a pair of well-fitted slacks, a white button-down and one of those fun printed waistcoats he loves to wear.

He sighs in annoyance. “That’s what you said about the first thing I tried on.”

“It was a full-on suit, of course it was too try-hard.”

Zayn just shakes his head and wanders into his walk-in wardrobe to find something else.

Harry takes a sip of the slightly flat champagne he found at the back of Zayn’s fridge when he let himself in earlier and offers some encouragement—after all, that’s why he’s here, to be Zayn’s personal cheerleader. “Outfit number four, number four’s the charm! I can feel it!”

“Shut up,” Zayn calls affectionately from somewhere inside the bowels of his cupboards and Harry just smiles.

After much deliberation, he’d settled on one of his acquaintances, Lilah Horne as Zayn’s first date. She’s enough of an acquaintance that it wouldn’t be too awkward if things don’t work out but a close enough friend that he knows she’s an all-right person. He decided, for this first try, to go for someone who was as unlike Perrie as he could possibly find. Just so Zayn wouldn’t spend the night making useless comparisons or fall into one of his funks over a strand of peroxide blonde hair or whatever.

Lilah is just the right person for the job.

She’s an entrepreneur, something to do with fashion and the internet, she has a penchant for very sleek stilettos and monochrome suits, her dark hair chopped short in a stylish bob and plum red lipstick. The sort of woman who might seem staid on the outside but who’s probably a tiger in the sack.

Once Zayn comes out of the closet in his fourth (and final, he insists because “there’s no way I’m changing again and if this one doesn’t work then fuck it, I’m staying home to watch _Misfits_ re-runs”), all Harry can do is gape for a second. Because he does know. Intellectually, that is. That Zayn’s ridiculously good-looking. I mean, he’s known the man for over a decade, seen him naked, seen him at his absolute worst, and through it all he’s been devastatingly gorgeous.

But the Zayn who steps out in a pair of dark-wash skinny jeans, maroon turtleneck that’s so dark it looks almost black, a brown leather aviator jacket that looks worn, a bit tatty even and therefore classic, and a pair of suede Chelsea boots is a bit much on the unsuspecting heart.

“Wow….”

Zayn looks down at himself hopefully. “Do you think this works?”

 _You look really hot. When did turtlenecks become acceptable again? Those jeans do amazing things for your thighs_. Harry just clears his throat and says, “You look nice.”

Zayn frowns. “Nice? Really? That’s not—do you think I should change again?”

He looks ready to do just that even though he’d pledged less than five minutes ago that he wouldn’t so Harry says, more honestly, “You look fucking brilliant, Zayn. Really hot. Seriously,” he gets up from the bed and steps closer so he can fiddle at the crooked bend of Zayn’s jacket, fix it for him, you know, for his date. “She’s not going to be able to take her eyes off you.”

Shaking his head, Zayn pulls away and looks back in the mirror to run a brush through his shaggy hair. “Easy there, Curly, if you’re too flowery with the compliments, they get harder to believe.”

And Harry just gives him a faint smile. Because he hadn’t meant to be flowery, he’d just been telling the truth.

Zayn grabs his keys and looks back to Harry, who’s still standing in the middle of the bedroom like he forgot something. “You coming out now or are you going to let yourself out? Don’t wanna be late.”

Harry looks at the sweep of Zayn’s hair across his brow and the excitement flaring in his eyes at the prospect of his date—the date that he set up—and feels a strange and nervous tickle in his belly. He nods toward the half-full glass of champagne on the bedside table and says, “I’ll let myself out in a bit, let me just finish my drink over there and take out the muffins that I’m baking for you. You go ahead and have fun.”

“Thanks, Haz. You’re the best,” Zayn throws over his shoulder. “Can’t wait to have my muffins tomorrow.”

Harry doesn’t move from his spot until he hears the quiet thud of Zayn’s front door closing and the burr of his engine as he drives off.

Hours later, at approximately, a half past eleven, Zayn buzzes him on the phone. Harry answers after one ring.

“How’d it go?”

“Hello to you too, Styles. Jesus.”

He didn’t mean to sound so abrupt he was just—well, he was curious. This was the first mission attempt it was important to get feedback to see how he should adjust his strategy for next time.

He can hear the swoosh of Zayn climbing into bed, probably in nothing but his boxers because Zayn hates sleeping in pyjamas or anything like that.

“Well, to answer your question, it went okay. Like, not great but not awful. She was nice, yeah? Smart too. But I don’t think we quite clicked.”

A curdle of tension Harry didn’t even know he had eases inside of him and he exhales, shifts onto his side under his bedcover, kicks his leg out to the cold part of the sheets and wiggles his toes. “How come?”

He’s sure Zayn shrugs just then. “I don’t know. She was very… efficient, y’know? And then she mentioned something about how she just hated fiction—.”

“You mean as in _all_ fiction?” Harry asks.

“Yeah. Like, when I told her about the show, she was just like, oh, I only watch the news and some shit and that was just a bit naff, like.”

“Yeah, that is naff,” Harry says and he tries to sound a bit regretful on Zayn’s behalf as that seems like the right thing to feel. “Sorry about that.”

“Not your fault, love, you couldn’t have known she hated everything to do with make-believe. Which would be kind of weird if we dated properly because that’s sort of all I think about.”

“Good thing it was a casual date thing and nothing too serious, right?”

“Right.”

He hears shuffling over the phone line. “You getting to bed already?”

“Mhm-hm,” Zayn hums. “Got an early start tomorrow for a production meeting over in Somerset for series two of _The Goners_. You?”

“I’m already in bed, got to film a couple of episodes tomorrow and then I plan to muck about with a few recipes for savoury bread and crab cakes.”

“Sounds yum, leave me some leftovers, yeah?”

“I’ll do you one better and bring some over tomorrow night,” Harry says. It’s the sort of thing he does for all his friends from time to time. He’s always been a firm believer that there’s no point in cooking unless you’re sharing the spoils with other people. And they’re his best critics, the lot of them so it works out.

“You don’t have to, you know.” Zayn’s yawning and shuffling again, his voice thickening with end-of-the-day tiredness.

“I don’t mind, you know that. Plus, if I didn’t bring you food, you’d probably starve to death, Malik.”

He chuckles foggily. “What would I do without you, Harry Styles?”

“I don’t know, lose weight?”

“I think I’d lose a lot more than that, babe.” He sounds half-asleep already. It’s always been a Zayn thing, this uncanny ability to fall asleep in the middle of an actual conversation. It’s endearing, and Harry can almost see the way his eyelids flutter shut and he grinds his teeth a little before his mouth slackens and he’s dead to the world for the next eight hours or so.

Harry briefly imagines being there beside him and pressing a kiss to that open mouth. And maybe Zayn rousing from sleep to return it, just a soft, absent pressure before he slipped into his dreams again.

He shakes his head to clear it. It’s not the first time he’s thought about kissing his friends—hell, they’ve all kissed each other one time or another. In their final year at uni, half their classmates were convinced they were involved in a five-way polyamorous relationship. But he’s not thought about kissing Zayn in a long time, so it’s a bit, funny but not odd.

He listens for a second to the sound of Zayn breathing, deep, slow breaths that indicate he’s already dozed off. He smiles.

“Good night, Zayn,” he says, soft so he doesn’t wake him.

He doesn’t cut the phone though and falls asleep to the sound of Zayn’s light snores and snuffling drifting through the earpiece.

 

 

 

 

 

+++

Dates two and three unfold in much the same way.

Taylor, it turns out, is just as bossy in a dinner situation as she is at karaoke. She does kiss amazingly well, according to Zayn. And Harry can’t really explain why his face folds itself into an unattractive frown—and he can tell it’s an ugly frown because he’s sitting in his car and checking his nose for long hairs while he listens—when Zayn shares that little titbit of information.

Rory, a DJ who’s closer friends with Nick really, pans out to be a bit of a tool that fobs the dinner bill on Zayn even though he ordered the most expensive thing on the menu and didn’t even finish it. He and Zayn didn’t kiss and Harry’s a bit relieved at that.

Four, five and six are nothing to write home about.

It’s number seven that throws everyone for a loop. By everyone, mostly Harry—because it goes well.

Apparently, Harry’s instincts about Ben were right on the money. Well, the ones in the pros column.

“He’s so smart and funny, and I haven’t seen any of his films but I promised to rent one out when I can. And it’s like, you know, he gets it. He gets what it’s like to have gone through all that stuff with someone you loved and come out on the other side of it.”

Zayn’s gushing. Zayn rarely ever gushes. The last time Harry heard Zayn gush it was about a line of Power Ranger toys he’d bought online for a crazy discount and that he was excited to add to his box of superhero collectibles—which was such a dorky thing to even do, and Harry’s not sure why he’s friends with someone who collects plastic superhero toys.

Harry doesn’t like the rollercoaster dip his tummy does. “Are you sure, I mean, I was a bit worried about pairing the two of you up—thought you might get a bit bogged down with your respective life stories.”

Zayn’s in the middle of heating up the casserole Harry’d dropped off the day before and the microwave bleeps loudly through the phone.

“Oh no, it was great. Just. Like I said, he just like gets it. Gets me.”

Harry grimaces. And stops himself just in time from saying something stupid like, _he_ totally gets Zayn. Ben might’ve had his heart broken but Harry was there the _whole_ time when Zayn went through his shit with Perrie. Because it’s not a competition. And it’s really not about him, he gets that and this is no time for unnecessary friend jealousy. It’s not like Zayn’s replacing him with some guy he’s just gone on one date with. That’s stupid.

But he still feels sick to his stomach.

He asks the dreaded question anyway. “So, are you going to see him again?”

“Yep.” Zayn sounds pleased. “Next Friday actually.”

When Zayn cuts the phone to get back to work, Harry just flops back against the headrest of his living room couch with a grumpy sigh.

This whole matchmaking thing is far more strenuous than it should be.

 

 

 

 

 

+++

Baking with Trisha Malik is probably one of his favourite things to do. It’s horrible that he doesn’t get to do so as often as he’d like given that she’s all the way up in Bradford and he lives full-time in London now. But he does like to sneak away to the Malik’s house whenever he can.

It should be a bit dodgy that he spends that much time with his best friend’s mum trying new combinations, fusing some of his French patisserie background with her South Asian sweets recipes for fun. But he’s always seen Trisha as something like a second mother anyway and she’s called him her favourite son a few times (even though he knows it’s not strictly true but he doesn’t so much mind coming in second to Zayn in this one instance), so it’s all good.

He likes Trisha because she’s got this quiet way about her that kind of reminds him of Zayn actually. She can always tell when something’s on your mind, can sense it in the air in that way mums can, but she never pushes. Just listens, nudges gently, and waits until you’re ready to spill all your secrets like an overstuffed apple tart.

“Have you heard from Zayn, lately?” Harry asks, makes sure to keep his voice nonchalant.

Trisha’s lifting a tray of sweet-smelling pastries from the oven. Today, they've tried an adapted balushahi recipe, a sort of glazed doughnut, fried then baked, the rich fragrance of apple, coconut, cinnamon and saffron laces the air. Harry closes his eyes to breathe it in. It smells like home.

“No, love. He’s been so busy lately. He did send me a text to tell me that he was seeing a few people and that you were fixing him up and that.”

There’s a question in there even if she hasn’t phrased it as such.

“Yeah, I um—fixed him up with a few of my friends. You know, he hasn’t been out much since Perrie, thought it’d be good for him to get out and about.”

Trisha hums as she pokes one of the honey-filled triangles of dough to check that it’s cooked all the way through. “Mhm, I was worried about him for a bit. You know Zayn. He can be so quiet.”

Harry makes a non-committal noise as he reaches into the fridge for a carton of milk to make them both some tea. He sits down at the counter with his mug and puts Trisha’s down across from his. She bustles around a bit getting a pair of plates ready and Harry knows to let her—she likes fussing after all of them whenever they come to visit and the only reason he’s even allowed near the kitchen is that he’s capable of cooking something without burning the house down.

“Thanks, Trisha,” he says when she slides a plate heaped with fresh-baked tart in front of him.

“Welcome, love.” And then she’s sitting across from him, sipping on her tea but watching him with that unnervingly perceptive gaze she sometimes gets. Like she sees pieces of Harry that he’s not even sure he has. He’s got an idea that it’s a mum thing because he gets the same from his own whenever he pops in to visit her back in Holmes Chapel.

“All right, now enough chatter about Zayn, how are you doing?”

Harry shrugs. “Good, thank you. Just, you know, the show’s doing really well and they’re even in talks to renew me for another series.”

“Oh, that’s fantastic, darling.” Trisha smiles, it’s one of those soft-hearted smiles that reminds him a lot of Zayn. “I’m proud of you.”

Harry’s cheeks grow warm at the praise and he thanks her.

“But that’s not what I meant. How is everything on the personal front, dating and all that?”

“Oh, you know me,” Harry says easily. “Not really looking for anything serious.”

Trisha sighs fondly. “Still?”

Harry hitches his left shoulder up and thinks on it a second. “I don’t know, I guess—I always figured by the time I turned thirty that I’d have it all figured out, maybe have a kid on the way. Like Liam with Jade. I mean, they’re chaotic but they’re happy with Annabelle and Janina, and there’s probably going to be another on the way soon knowing them. But I guess I haven’t found the one.”

“Hm,” she lets out one of those curious hums that say a lot without saying much at all. “I’m sure you’ll figure it out when it’s time, love. You can’t rush these things. I mean, look at Zayn and Perrie. Not that I’d take back any of the good times and I gained a lovely daughter-in-law and a best friend in Debbie but they were too young for that kind of commitment in a lot of ways.”

Harry feels a prickle down the back of his head at the mention of Perrie. He doesn’t have any hard feelings towards her, mainly because Zayn doesn’t. And if Zayn could find a way to get over his heartbreak and be friendly with his ex-wife then Harry can too. It’s just, well, he was the one who’d been there to pick up the pieces, who saw Zayn at the absolute rock bottom. So there’s just an uneasiness whenever she comes up.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone love so much as Zayn loved Perrie.”

Trisha finishes chewing some of the sticky tart with a wise smile on her face. “They did love each other. But you can love a lot of people in life. And sometimes it lasts a few months and sometimes it’s a lifetime, you know. Just have to be thankful for all of it, even when it hurts.”

Harry doesn’t say anything to that. Watching Zayn and Perrie from the side lines, even back then, he’d been sure of one thing—that she was The One for Zayn. The light he’d get in his eyes just watching her, like she was everything good the world had to give in human skin, had been almost unnerving to watch. Harry couldn’t imagine loving someone like that. So much that you didn’t know how to be without them.

“But one thing I am thankful for, Harry Styles, is you.”

“Me?” Harry says, confused.

“Hm, yes. I don’t think Zayn would’ve survived all of that without you. Not just he and Perrie splitting up but before then when he moved to London all by himself, away from his family for the first time. And all the frantic emails about his weird curly-haired roommate who wouldn’t leave him alone.” She gets up from her seat and walks around the kitchen island to press a kiss to Harry’s forehead and ruffle his hair. “I think he would’ve been pretty lost if it hadn’t been for you.”

A smile creeps across Harry’s face. He’s sort of thought that sometimes. And it makes him feel proud that Trisha thinks that of him too.

The thing is, he probably wouldn’t have made it anywhere without Zayn either. Zayn who never once laughed at Harry’s stupid, rambling stories even when they didn’t make sense, who’d stayed up with him the night before his last law exam and done his flashcards until six in the morning just because he knew Harry was freaking out so badly about it. Who hadn’t poked fun when Harry chose to go back to Holmes-Chapel to work in the bakery instead of doing something proper and secure with his life. Who’d been there that one time one of Harry’s ex-girlfriends had a pregnancy scare and reassured Harry that it was okay to be put out that she was choosing to abort, it wasn’t his place to make that decision, but it was _okay_ to be a bit sad about it. Zayn, who’d fed him watery chicken soup and tepid tea every single time Harry got his annual life-threatening frog-flu in that unwieldy in-between season that was October.

He’s lucky, he thinks, to have had someone like that in his life. Who’s just always been there when it counts.

 

 

 

 

 

+++

The knocking on the door is brash and loud.

Harry frowns and puts his nearly empty glass of dry red wine down on the coffee table along with his near-finished Oyeyemi novel and heads to see who it is. A peek through the peephole reveals a familiar head of dark hair. He opens the door. “Zayn?”

Zayn steps past him without a word and stomps in the direction of the kitchen. Harry shuts the door with raised brows and follows after him.

He doesn’t say anything as he watches Zayn reach for the mostly full wine bottle he’d just started in on and a glass from the cabinet above the sink, fill it up and take a long drawn-out sip before putting it down and wiping the damp off his upper lip.

“Is… everything okay?”

“Wonderful,” Zayn says, his voice snappy. Clearly everything is anything but okay.

Harry waits a beat. “I thought you were out on another date with Ben.”

“I was.”

“You guys seem to be getting along.”

“We were.” He fills another glass and glugs that down in one swallow.

And Harry gets a bit worried so he steps forward and takes the cup from him, puts it in the sink.

“Okay, what happened?”

“The date went well. We went to this diner and it was low-key and perfect, just the way I like it.”

For a second, Harry really kind of hates Ben for being apparently so good at everything and bloody perfect. Most people don’t pick up that Zayn likes things quiet and easy. That he doesn’t need anything flashy or fancy, just somewhere where he can rest and be himself and not have to worry.

“But then we went back to his house. You know, to hang out. And maybe a bit more. And it was easy. We just had a few drinks, sat down, and listened to some music.”

Harry bites the inside of his mouth and clenches his fingers to stop himself from doing something odd like sticking them in his ears so he doesn’t have to hear the next bit.

“And then we started kissing and you know, stuff. But I kept—I kept thinking about if I was bad at it? You know, sex. Like, Perrie even said I’d gotten boring and predictable with things. That was one of the reasons she left, you know? And I just froze up again like an idiot. And then I ran away.”

“You ran away?”

“Yeah.” He looks ashamed of himself.

Harry doesn’t like that, that he feels like he’s failed himself or Ben or anyone by not being able to have sex. It’s perfectly natural for someone who feels as intensely as Zayn, who’s not always so good at letting things go. So he does the best and only thing he can and steps forward to hold him. Just holds him until they both fall asleep.

The next morning, Harry has his second best great idea. It might be his actual best.

He’s sure that the reason why his brain’s firing on all cylinders so early in the morning is the warm, solid presence of the body in front of him. Zayn’s just cosy and soft and fun to wrap around because of his lean compactness and being so bendable.

He maps out his plan in his head first, careful because this could be disastrous and then only brings it up hours later when Zayn’s getting ready to make both of them a breakfast (the only meal he can cook and not murder people around him) of scrambled eggs and toast.

“So, I had an idea.”

“Ugh.” Zayn grabs some orange juice from the fridge, pours himself a glass and sips carefully. “It’s too early for Harry ideas.”

“No seriously, this is about your sex problems.”

“I don’t have sex problems.”

“You ran away from hot Ben Winston before the two of you could have potentially great sex.” Harry gags internally. “So I think we can call it a problem.”

“Fine.” Zayn turns around to put his glass in the sink. “What’s your idea?”

Walking up so he can stand behind him and just cuddle him for a second like they always do, Harry outlines his rather genius plan. “You’re clearly nervous and freaking out about intimacy. Which, no one can blame you for after being married to the same woman for like a decade, not having sex with anyone but her for about twelve years and all that stuff.”

“Okay.”

“So, I think you need to have sex with someone who doesn’t give you any anxiety. You need to stop thinking so hard and just be with someone who makes you comfortable and safe and not self-conscious.”

“Yeah, like I’m going to find that person.”

“I’ve got an idea, actually.”

“Who?”

“Me.”

 

 

 

 

 

+++

Harry’s kind of surprised that Zayn doesn’t shove him away and laugh in his face right then.

He just sort of frowns in this considering way as though he’s not quite sure whether Harry’s having a laugh or not before he shakes his head and mutters something about cheese omelettes.

Harry doesn’t panic. Which is a miracle. And a credit to their friendship that he knows Zayn well enough to give him time to stew. He knows very well that it’s a crazy idea. Except, it’s also an idea that makes quite a bit of sense.

So when Zayn shows up at his doorstep two days later and the first thing he asks is, “What’s in it for you?”

Harry can say with complete honesty, “I mean, I want you to be happy, Zayn. That’s all. That’s all I’ve ever wanted. And I think that once you get over this hurdle, you’ll feel okay again. And if I can help then I will.”

It sounds pretty noble even.

“Yeah, but why would you want to have sex with me?”

Harry snorts, “Have you seen yourself?”

“I mean, yeah, I get that but we’re best friends. So that doesn’t count.”

“I already told you,” Harry explains reasonably. “It’s because I want you to feel better about all this stuff and get on with your life before you’re decrepit and too old to enjoy sex. Come on, why don’t we just see how it goes? Take it slow.”

Zayn doesn’t look like he needs much convincing but there’s a worried little furrow on his brow that Harry wants to smooth out with his fingers.

“Do you think it’ll make things awkward between us? Because,” and he looks scared now as he takes a deep breath, “I can’t lose you, Harry, or mess us up.”

“Only if we let it. Let’s not think of it as any different from me bringing you a big basket of fresh muffins. That’s what’s happening, I’m bringing you muffins and you get to eat them for as long as you need to get your mojo back.”

“Giving me your muffins, hunh?” There’s a smile in Zayn’s voice, it goes deeper so he sounds like Joey from _Friends_ delivering a lame pick-up line. “Wait, what if we’re not, you know, sexually compatible?”

And Harry would say something obnoxious like there’s not a single human on earth that he’s not sexually compatible with but that feels tacky and it might ruin the moment. So he does the next best thing and takes Zayn by the hand, pulls him in, gently but steady, and kisses him. Just like that.

He’s got something to prove with this kiss so he doesn’t muck about. The second their lips touch, he tests the firmness of Zayn’s, and then opens his mouth to taste. There’s the faint trace of mint and something sweeter before Zayn accepts the challenge and parts his lips to meet Harry’s tongue. And then it’s a tangle, like the two of them are trying to prove something. Harry draws him up close until their bodies are aligned and then he walks him back into the fridge for leverage to deepen the contact.

Zayn moans into his mouth and Harry catches the sound on his tongue, lets his hands drift down to Zayn’s hips to hold him still while he thrusts, just a little one, so they can both feel the way their half-hard lengths fit together.

When he pulls back, he doesn’t go far. Just far enough to breathe against Zayn’s cheek.

“I think we’ll be fine on the compatibility front.”

He feels Zayn nod.

“So how’re we gonna do this, then?” he asks quietly as if it’s a secret. Which it is technically just between the two of them and no one else, but they’re in a house alone, it’s not like there’s anyone to listen.

“We’ll just treat it like normal. I’ll come by tomorrow with dinner and you just—.”

“Bring the condoms?”

Harry chuckles. “And the lube and whatever else you like. We don’t have to go far. We’ll just do whatever you’re comfortable with and nothing more or less. Deal?”

Zayn leans in to kiss him on the corner of the mouth to seal it. “Deal.”

The barely-controllable wave of happiness Harry feels that he’s gotten exactly what he wants right then should be the first thing to warn him what a bad idea this is.

It really should. But it isn’t.

 

 

 

 

 

+++

Harry shows up with dinner at around eight in the evening, in a tatty t-shirt he’s had for years and threadbare jeans. And it really is just like normal.

They fall into an easy rhythm, Zayn sets the table barefoot like he usually does, puts some of his little artistic flourishes, a spray of white petunias in the middle that match the fat, white vanilla candles he’s got notched around the room. Harry heats up the gourmet pizza he invented a few days ago, a mix of blue cheese, soft goat’s cheese and fresh mozzarella, honey-soaked pears and roasted duck and a tartly spicy peach salsa and puts it on the table with a flourish of fresh rocket and dry white wine. It’s no different from what they usually do when it comes down to it. Thinking back, Harry’s probably had dinner at Zayn’s or vice versa at least once a week, twice sometimes, over the last year-and-a-half and back when he was married they’d seen each other at least once every two weeks.

So it’s not awkward when they sit across from each other, Zayn’s favourite Nina Simone album playing lazily from the record player in the corner, and polish off the bottle of wine together. Or when Zayn moans around his first bite of pizza like it’s the best thing he’s tasted in his entire life and compliments Harry in that vein as he gobbles up his first and second and third squares in very little time. It’s not weird when Harry reaches across the table to feed Zayn a bite of his own last piece of pizza or when Zayn wipes at the bit of pear Harry gets at the corner of his mouth. It doesn’t get strange when they load the dishwasher and Harry wipes up the table while Zayn dries his hands and tosses the dish cloth on the counter.

It’s just. It’s them. It’s Harry and Zayn being Harry and Zayn. And they fall into it with remarkable ease.

They’re sprawled out on the couch, the conversation drifting in and out, Nina’s throaty voice arcing over the two of them when Zayn makes the first move. And maybe it’s because he knows Harry and he’s not freaked out about anything but it’s smooth, the way he puts down his wine glass and slides in close, and kisses him in one fluid motion.

Harry doesn’t move much to take control of the kiss. Just lets Zayn have his way, explore what he wants at his own pace. He’s breathless too. Because Zayn’s a good kisser. Really good.

When they pull apart to breathe just a bit, Harry says, his voice winded at the edges, “We can do whatever you want and nothing more, yeah? Just tell me what you need.”

The look Zayn gives him is hot enough to singe, there’s a pink flush to his cheeks and he shifts his gaze down the length of Harry’s body like he’s not quite sure what he wants to start with, like he wants a little—or a lot—of everything.

Harry feels himself get impossibly hard under Zayn’s perusal. And he’s always been like that, the sort of person who could get hard at a mere thought if he was thinking intensely enough. But it feels different with Zayn and the banked heat in his dark eyes, more urgent somehow.

Zayn smiles. He’s not blind after all. And he reaches out to run his hand along Harry’s thigh, which tenses under the touch. “I think.” He licks his lips. “I think I might like to suck you off actually.”

The groan Harry makes then is a bit embarrassing, as is the way he juts his hips into the air at the promise of Zayn’s words.

Zayn doesn’t follow through immediately, just leans right in to kiss Harry, slow and languorous, their tongues playing against each other lazily. Not that Harry was expecting him to just go for his dick without preamble or anything. He’s always been the kind of person who likes to take his time, moves to a rhythm he can hear in his head. Harry’s always sort of admired that about Zayn; that he’s not afraid to just be himself and not fit into any of the square holes society lays out for people. But he thinks he might just lose his mind if he takes it really slow tonight.

Harry tilts his head leftward so Zayn can tongue at the hollow of his throat, press his lips against the pulse thundering under his heated skin and then lower down to his chest. He lifts Harry’s ratty t-shirt up until it’s bunched at his armpits.

“Is this okay?” Zayn asks just above Harry’s ribcage.

“God yes.” And he doesn’t miss the smile Zayn tucks into the moth tattoo on his belly before he licks in a straight down to the waistband of his jeans.

Zayn fumbles around a bit with his zip and tugs on the constraining material along with Harry’s boxers with an amused grunt. “Jesus, could your jeans be any tighter, babe? Are you sure you’re not fucking with blood-flow to your brain with these things.”

Harry huffs out a laugh because every word Zayn says blows warm air across his already dripping cock and it’s making him a bit lightheaded. “Who needs a brain when you’ve got an arse like mine?”

And Zayn smirks, his hands sneak under to palm at Harry’s ass, pull him lower down the couch. “Can’t argue with that reasoning.”

Before Harry can say something smart about what a great bum he has and how loads of people have told him so and that once an artist offered to cast it in bronze, which is complete rubbish, but Harry’s always been a bit of a babbler when he’s horny and impatient to make up for how slow he talks otherwise—Zayn just presses his face against Harry’s cock and breathes in.

Harry grips the fluffy pillow by his hand, so hard he’ll probably rip into it if he’s not careful and waits.

“I like how you smell,” Zayn remarks. “Like—well, like you.”

“Ugh, thanks,” Harry barely manages to say. Because Zayn, impossibly beautiful Zayn with those cheekbones of his, is within inches of his dick and it’s all a bit dizzying if he’s honest. He can’t even stop the impatient little hip-thrust he gives when it seems like Zayn’s not going to do what he promised. And Zayn, the twat, just chuckles while he brings his hand up to fist Harry slowly, his fingers callused, like he’s learning the feel of him now that he’s gotten past the smell.

It’s when Zayn looks up that Harry realises he’s been stalling. “What’s wrong?”

“It’s just. Nothing. I just, like, tell me if I’m rubbish at this, all right? Haven’t done it in a while.”

And there’s a nervous flutter to his eyelids that makes something warm unravel in Harry’s stomach, like melting toffee. Harry reaches out to rub his thumb against Zayn’s chin and says, reassuring and candid, “You’ll be perfect, babe.”

Zayn tips his head to lean into the touch and a little smile lingers on his mouth before he leans forward to lick at Harry’s dick, tentative at first and then a swirl of tongue around the tip.

Harry sighs. Nibbles on his lip as he watches avidly. There’s probably a part of him that’s been waiting for this his whole entire life and he doesn’t want to miss a second.

One of the things that’s always struck Harry about Zayn is the way he can bury himself inside a thing, a task at hand, a book or writing, or even just watching a film until it’s the only thing he’s focused on to the exclusion of anything else. He’s like that in conversation too, which is why he’s everyone’s favourite if you’re looking for someone to just listen to you sort out the craziness going on in your head.

It’s different when the very thing he’s honed all his attention on is your dick and making you feel good, Harry discovers.

When he sinks down to take in as much of Harry as he can, chokes halfway down but keeps going until his nose hits the neatly-trimmed pubic hair at the base, he does it with a studious sort of eagerness. And when Harry tenses and wheezes his name out on a question,  
“Zayn?”

Zayn pulls off slowly with a deliciously wet pop. “Yeah, babe?” He uses the combination of his spit and slick to ease his hand, up and down Harry’s cock.

And Harry’s not even sure what he meant to say five seconds ago because then Zayn’s ducking down to wrap his mouth around the head of his cock, tight suction as he slurps on it like it’s an ice cream cone. His eyes are closed, eyelashes dusky across his cheekbones, his hair a fluffy mess from Harry’s restless hands. Harry gasps and comes then, quick and uncontrolled like some schoolboy, his hips jerking so hard he slips out of Zayn’s mouth and spills along the stubble of his chin.

Zayn doesn’t move away from the line of fire. Let’s Harry’s jizz spurt along his cheek and slide down his jaw with a quiet moan that sounds like, “So fucking hot.”

Harry can’t do much more than agree.

When Zayn’s cleaned himself up, with his fingers, stuffing every trace of Harry into his mouth, greedy with it, he looks up and says, “That went okay, didn’t it?”

If the state of Harry right then, sprawled out and still trying to catch his breath, doesn’t answer that question. The strung-out laugh he lets out at the absurdity of Zayn even having to ask does.

 

 

 

 

 

+++

He doesn’t get to do much more than watch Zayn jerk himself off, frantic and all muffled curses while he’s nibbling at Harry’s neck that first night. It’s hot but it’s not enough. Harry wants more, wants to see all of Zayn’s faces as he takes him apart with his teeth, his tongue, his hands. His fingers are itchy with it.

But that weekend, Zayn comes over to hang out and watch football with the rest of the lads. It’s pretty usual for a Saturday afternoon. They’d normally congregate at one of Niall’s pubs or at Liam’s if he’s on toddler duty, but Jade’s taken the twins out on a shopping trip with her girlfriends. They come to Harry’s this time because of the promise of really good food—rosemary and honey-basted beef ribs, spicy chicken wings made with Harry’s secret barbecue sauce, and homemade chocolate-and-fudge-nut ice cream.

Louis and Niall are crowing at the T.V., Liam slumped tiredly between them as he sips on his beer, he looks a little better than he did when the girls were teething a few months ago. Back then, it’d seemed like he could fall asleep on his feet any moment he was stationery.

“Li, you all right?” Zayn asks from his perch on the arm of Harry’s chair.

Liam grins. “Yeah, I’m fine, mate. Jade kept me up pretty late this morning, actually.” His smile turns mischievous.

They all groan and Louis pipes up, laughter sparking in his blue eyes, “Oh god, please don’t talk about you and princess having sex. It’s like imagining my parents going at it or something.”

Liam chuckles. “Trust me, if your mum could do this one thing Jade does with her hips, you’d want to know.”

Everyone cries out in revulsion then.

“Are you guys trying for baby number three or something?” Niall asks as he uncaps another beer, his third by Harry’s count, although he’s always had the constitution of a bull when it comes to alcohol. “Could’ve sworn you had a hickey the size of a small foot on your neck last week and the week before that you were practically limping.”

Liam has the grace to blush a bit at that. Harry has no idea what his friend and his wife do in the privacy of their bedroom but Jade’s always been the sweetest person he knows, sort of like a Disney princess in the flesh, so it doesn’t surprise him that she’s pretty wild in bed. And he’s never been able to look at Liam the same after he found him stuffing himself with a dildo, a pair of nipple clamps on, that one time in their third year of university. They’re clearly well-satisfied with each other.

“I think we might already have baby number three—on the way, that is,” Liam says with a sheepish smile. “Jade was extra, you know, horny in the first trimester with the twins. Couldn’t get enough of it. But she hasn’t gone to the doctor yet, so don’t tell anyone until we know for sure.”

There’s a surprised silence at his words. Liam and Jade have always wanted to have a big family but Harry’s pretty sure they planned to wait a while longer before starting in on the next lot. Then they’re congratulating him and Louis says, “Do I get to be the godfather for this lot, then?”

“Hey, no way, I’m calling first dibs,” Harry says.

“I’m still bitter that you picked Niall first, he's the mouthiest of us all.” This comes from Zayn with a grumpy half-smile.

Niall, who dotes on the twins, tips his head smugly. “I was the obvious choice, kids love me and Uncle Niall is clearly the most fun and Jade obviously enjoys my foul mouth.”

Before Louis can argue that, Liam holds up his hands. “No fighting, please. I’ll let you all know once Jade picks—the lot of you can try and get on her good side if you want.”

They switch their attention to the television then when Arsenal manages to net one. Louis’ on his feet yelling at the screen and Niall’s withdrawing fifty quid from his wallet and throwing it at Liam with a disgruntled frown.

Harry sits back, belly-full, the familiar camaraderie of all his friends around him, the commentator talking fast on the television. He leans to his side a bit, knocks his head against Zayn’s hip until Zayn moves his arm enough that Harry can situate himself comfortably in his lap. And then Zayn’s fingers are in his hair, the drag and pull of his nails against Harry’s scalp feels good. He relaxes into it, and Zayn’s scent, sandalwood and mint and something musky underneath lulls him to sleep.

Later that night, Zayn stays behind to help Harry clean up. It's been raining all day outside, inside, it's snug and cosy with the dim glow of Harry's sunflower yellow walls and the low-hanging wooden beams on the ceiling.

They work well together so it doesn’t take long. Harry notices though that Zayn’s quieter than usual, slotting plates in the dishwasher with more concentration than the task requires.

“What’s on your mind?” he asks as he scrubs at an oven tray.

Zayn shuts the dishwasher door and stands up with soft sigh, he wipes his fingers off on a towel and comes to stand next to Harry by the sink. “I don’t know—I was just thinking, I guess, about Liam and Jade.”

Harry passes the tray over and Zayn rinses it and puts it out to dry. “What about them?”

“I don’t know, I just—I always thought that like I’d be there by now. Married with kids, always wanted a big family, you know. A proper house with a lawn and a swing in it that I’d hand-paint myself, and a mess of toys while my kids splashed in a pool or something. Now look at me,” he says with a rueful laugh.

Harry hip-swipes him. “You’ve got time to have kids. You’re not exactly geriatric.”

“I know,” Zayn says, his voice subdued. “Just sort of waiting for when I’ll have it all figured out, like. I feel like I’ve gone back to square one and I have to get my bearings all over again, learn how to be a proper adult.”

The atmosphere in the kitchen’s taken a downturn. Harry gets it though, he’s probably the broodiest about kids of the five of them, always has been. But it’s never been quite the right time or the right person for him and he’s okay to wait until the universe sorts itself out.

Before things can get too maudlin, Harry abandons the soapy bowl in the sink, reaches out to drag Zayn close by the shirt. His wet hands soak through to Zayn’s skin as he hugs him for a bit, kisses his nose, a bit playful as he says in a hushed voice, “Well, I’m here to help you, you know. I’m very good at getting people up when they’re down.”

“Is that a pick-up line?” Zayn says with a bemused smile.

“Maybe… do you want it to be?”

Zayn puts his arms around Harry’s neck and draws him down for a proper kiss as an answer.

The kiss turns feral pretty quickly. Harry reaches for the bottom of the old Bat-signal t-shirt that Zayn’s owned since university and pulls it up and over the top of his head. Zayn goes for the buttons on Harry’s shirt and shoves it over his shoulders to the floor without stopping the kiss.

They shuffle across the kitchen and Zayn pushes him into the reddish-brown teak table Harry bought from an antique shop in Brighton a couple of years ago. It’s sturdy, the sort of thing that’s built to withstand just about anything so it doesn’t groan under the weight of Harry hopping up onto it and yanking Zayn close.

Harry likes kissing. A lot, really. But he kind of wants to do more than that. Wants to feel himself fall apart around Zayn and the other way around. So he leans on his elbows and away from Zayn’s wet mouth to ask, “How far do you want to go this time?”

Zayn swallows deeply, his throat hitches, and he looks down at the two of them, tangled as they are. “I don’t know. All the way?”

There’s uncertainty there. Understandable, really. All of a sudden the weight of this impresses itself on Harry’s mind. He’s going to be Zayn’s first. Well, not his first-first but his first in a long, long while. That’s a lot of pressure that he’s kind of afraid he won’t live up to.

He bites the bullet. “It’s okay if you don’t want to do this, you know, I’ll understand.”

Zayn shakes his head. “No, no. I want this. I want you.”

And those three words steal Harry’s breath away for a second. He looks at Zayn, makes sure he’s got his full attention, before he says, “I want you to fuck me.”

Zayn looks down at Harry’s bare chest, drags his teeth against his kiss-swollen lips. “Bedroom?” he asks as he kisses Harry, his tongue stabbing inside of his mouth, hungry and relentless. Harry just submits to it, opens himself up to as Zayn finishes undoing his flies and tugs at his jeans and his briefs. When he ducks down to suck on one of Harry’s nipples, his tongue flailing around the puckered tip, the entire kitchen tilts on its access. Harry whines in the back of his throat, scrapes his fingernails along the short hairs at the back of Zayn’s neck until he bites down on the aureole, hard enough for it to hurt. He kisses his way across Harry’s chest to worry the other nipple.

“We don’t have to go to the bedroom, actually,” Harry mumbles and he reaches across the table to dig inside the bowl of tchotchkes for the half-full bottle of lube he knows is there.

Zayn bursts out laughing. “I don’t even want to know.”

Harry throws the lube at him and raises his brow. “So, are you going to fuck me or not?”

He eyes Harry’s hand, which is already working at his length, and gulps. “Yeah—yeah, all right.”

Zayn’s gentle with this bit. Slicks his finger up, and reaches down to rub around the edge of Harry’s hole. He bends down to lap at the tip of his dick, and Harry moans when he sticks the end of his finger in, the subtle burn of it.

One finger up to the knuckle, and then all the way in, and Harry bears down on it instinctively.

He has to stop for a beat or two, just rest his head on Harry’s shoulder while he breathes shakily and says with a sort of starved awe, “You’re so tight.”

When he’s got three fingers sliding in and out, wet and curling inward on each pass, he leans back to ask, careful and absorbed as he watches his hand and Harry’s arse just taking it, “Ready?”

Harry just nods. He’s not above begging for it at this point.

Zayn’s as careful as anything with that first glide in. Holds his cock at Harry’s entrance and pushes, shallow at first before he rocks back, and then prods tiny bit further the next pass. By the time he’s all the way in, Harry’s torn between yelling at him to get on with it and asking him to stop for a bit so he can get used to the plump girth of him. Zayn stops anyway, holds himself still, his arms trembling slightly.

And Harry appreciates it, really he does. But he does grit out, “God, Zayn, move.”

Zayn does as told. A lazy row-boat rhythm at first, like he’s scared Harry’ll break or something if he really cuts loose.

“Harder, please,” Harry says against the taut skin of his clavicle where the delicate Arabic script tattoo he got for his birthday years ago curls. He digs his heels into Zayn’s arse then to spur him on.

Zayn doesn’t hesitate to oblige then. And he really starts to fuck into Harry. Every single thrust jostles the table, makes the fruit bowl clatter about, and Harry holds onto the edge of it for dear life. Zayn’s hips move with steady momentum, and each slide brings his cock deep inside him, nudges at his prostrate and tugs him closer to the precipice he’s looking for.

“Oh, good—fuck, right there,” Harry stutters and he reaches down to jerk himself off.

Zayn slaps his hand away and growls out on a particularly rough lunge, “No touching. Want you to come just like this, my cock and nothing else.”

Harry lets out a moan. Because, for someone so retiring and unassuming the way Zayn can be most of the time, he doesn’t fuck around when it comes to sex. His eyes are laser-sharp, taking in every bit of Harry he can, sweat glistening at his brow and his naked shoulders and the pulsing muscles at his torso where the gun tattoo stands out starkly against his pale skin, his biceps flexing as he holds Harry’s legs up around his waist and then higher up over his arms so he gets a better angle. The angle that makes Harry cry out, throw his head back against the table, hard enough that it makes his ears ring.

His cock’s leaving trails of pre-come across his stomach, heavy, veins standing out under the skin with desperation to just release all the pent-up frustration. If he could just touch it. Just, even get a finger to it, he knows he’d come like a round of lit fireworks.

But he doesn’t. Because Zayn told him not to. And if possible, the knowledge of that, makes everything even hotter. And he feels fit to burst right there.

Zayn thrusts, his rhythm less steady. He’s let go of one of Harry’s legs so he can find leverage on the table and really plunge in and out, the obscenely slick sound of Harry’s stuffed ass fills the kitchen, bounces up against the stainless steel pots hanging from their hooks on the ceiling.

He turns his head to bite into the skin at Harry’s thigh. It’s sharp and painful, unexpected. Then he says into the red mark he leaves there, “Come for me. Now, babe.”

Harry feels himself spurt, comes with a loud, “Oh yes, yes, yes,” his semen arching all over his torso and Zayn’s in thick, white ropes.

Zayn follows him over the edge, says, “Harry,” with a hoarse shout like his orgasm took him by surprise.

They’re both scaling down from the high and Zayn murmurs, “I’m gonna pull out now, love.”

Harry groans when he does, but stays spread-eagled out on the table, legs hanging over the edge, while Zayn ties off the end of the condom and tosses it in the bin. How he’s able to move around right now and be vaguely coherent is a mystery. Harry thinks he could stay just like this, come drying on his chest, Zayn’s kisses buzzing in his mouth for about a week.

He comes back with a slightly damp paper towel and cleans Harry up, gentle as always. And Harry smiles up at him dreamily.

“How’d that feel for a first try?”

Zayn leans down to press his mouth into Harry’s chin, affectionate and just. Sweet. And says, “I don’t know, it was pretty good. But I think,” he shifts up to lick at Harry’s mouth, their eyes meeting then. “I think I’ll need some more practice. Just to make sure, I’m okay.”

Harry’s smile turns filthy in an instant.

 

 

 

 

 

+++

Harry’s not even sure what it was he did with his life before he and Zayn started fucking. It’s a bit of a blur, really. Because they used to hang out all the time but it’s inconceivable to think they did so without ever sleeping together. Seeing as how now they can’t stop. Fucking, that is.

When they meet with the lads for Friday Nights at Niall’s—a twice-a-month standing date for the five of them that’s only ever been broken twice, once when Zayn missed it after the Great Break-Up and the other when Liam had to leave in the middle after a call from the hospital that his then-girlfriend now-wife, Jade was giving birth to the twins (they’d all missed it that time, mainly because Liam had been so flustered he’d run out the bar without his car keys and then come back sheepish and flushed and soaking wet ten minutes later after sprinting off down the street in the pouring rain and Louis, who was usually pretty good at keep his head in an emergency, had ended up driving all of them to St Mary’s together)—it doesn’t take five minutes for them to sneak off to the toilet to make out.

“Ugh, fuck,” Zayn breathes into his mouth. “They’ll know what we’re doing in here, babe.” He doesn’t make any effort to stop though. In fact, he slides his hand downward to pull Harry’s shirt out of his jeans so he can skate his fingers up his ribcage.

“Don’t care,” Harry says and then he’s falling to his knees. “Been thinking about getting you off all day.”

Zayn just grins. “My cock is eternally grateful that you spend so much time thinking about his welfare.”

When Harry emerges from the bathroom with a suspiciously flushed face and his hair more askew than usual, his lips a plumped cherry-red. No one remarks on it. And when Zayn comes out five minutes later, trousers a bit damp from having to wash out the come stain Harry got on them by mistake (it wasn’t his fault Zayn came so quickly that it took him by surprise and he hadn’t opened his mouth wide enough in the moment), no one says anything at all.

They do it everywhere. In the front seat of Zayn’s car. In the backseat of Harry’s. Under Zayn’s desk at the production studios, which was squashy and mostly uncomfortable even if the results were pretty brilliant. In the loos of every single one of Niall’s bars. And Harry’s bathtub, bubbly water spilling over the edge onto the floor as Zayn rides Harry’s cock like he was born for it. Zayn even brings Harry off over the phone once with nothing but his words and a gruff command that Harry come and make sure the neighbours hear it.

Turns out Zayn’s got a kinky side wider than Eurasia once he lets loose and Harry’s really happy to reap the benefits. He’s still unclear on what Perrie found boring and predictable about their marital sex life. Because in the past three or four weeks they’ve been going at it like rabbits, there’s been nothing even remotely dull about the sex. In fact, it’s probably the best sex Harry’s ever had and that includes his first proper girlfriend Caroline who’d been one of the most flexible humans he’s ever met and knew how to do particularly obscene things with her feet.

Once, Zayn uses a pair of ties to strap his hands to the headboard with a quietly-asked, “This all right, babe?”

Harry tries not to nod so hard his head falls off.

But he does show his enthusiasm with every moan that rips out of his throat, and every curse, and every, “Oh, fuck, Zayn, yes” he manages when he spends the next two hours being Zayn’s personal edible canvas and submitting to the delicate, ticklish, titillating brush daubing him in every possible colour from the crate of sweet-flavoured paints.

Zayn pays special attention to painting his dick in striations of chocolate, orange and strawberry colours and the tantalising flick of it nearly drives Harry insane. When Zayn sits back on his heels to survey his handiwork, his fingers a splotchy bright-coloured mess, his eyes whiskey-dark and heated, he murmurs so quiet Harry almost misses it, "So pretty, so pretty for me." And tied up like that, his muscles stretching out under Zayn's frankly admiring gaze, preening, Harry thinks he'd be or do just about anything his best friend asked of him.

He does go a bit mad when Zayn finally puts his mouth on him and sucks him clean to within an inch of his life.

And when he’s panting afterwards. Zayn slumped beside him, utterly finished from bringing himself off at the foot of the bed. He says, voice hoarse, “Not that I needed it just now but I think we better think up a safe word.”

Zayn giggles into his armpit, presses a soft kiss there. “How about Ironman, then.”  
  
“I think I’ll pick Cinnamon.”

And they both laugh into the quiet.

 

 

 

 

 

+++

The best part about having a secret, well, a semi-secret, Harry’s pretty sure a couple of his co-workers have figured it out by now is that there’s always something adventurous about it. Thrilling.

It’s walking into a room filled with people and having a drink with his friends, and meeting Zayn’s eyes across a table and just _knowing_. Or walking down the street to have lunch at one of those bistros near his flat, so close that their fingertips brush even if no other part of their bodies touch and feeling the shock of electricity from even that brief contact. Rubbing at the flagrant hickey on his neck, courtesy of Zayn who is also a vampire in his spare time, and letting the dulled pain of it fizzle under his skin while he smiles and remembers just how he got it. Or nudging into each other in the middle of a party, whispering about how they can’t wait to get home and fuck each other senseless.

It’s like being in on something clandestine, illicit. It’s Harry having a piece of Zayn that no one else is allowed to touch and it’s all his. He’s always been a bit of a possessive arse about things, about friends, about Zayn—so it’s not like much has changed. They’ve just introduced more orgasms and nakedness into their relationship.

And it’s probably the best decision they’ve ever made.

 

 

 

 

 

+++

“And you just want to get right deep in the balls with these and jiggle them around a bit, make sure they’re all nice and covered up in your cinnamon-flavoured honey,” Harry says with a wink at the camera while he raises his hands out of the gooey mess he’s creating to lick at his finger—just like he knows his audience, and the man who’s currently standing just out of his camera eye-line, likes.

Knowing Zayn’s in the studio waiting for him to finish filming his fortieth episode has made him a bit more self-conscious than usual and, at the same time, a lot more daring with the innuendo. Which is probably bad. His show has the reputation for being a little R-rated and only comes on at ten every Thursday and Saturday night but he does have to well, keep it in the proverbial pants. But given that he’s not wearing any pants that seems like a bit of a silly ask.

He slides his gaze leftward after he puts the Candied Cinnamon Balls in the oven to glaze over and harden and he meets a pair of sherry-dark eyes, half-mast, so the eyelashes leave shadows on cheekbones far too unreasonably-perfect to be real.

“And cut!” his director, Jesy, a tattooed five-foot glamazon of a woman, yells. “That was hot, Harry, loved it.” They’ll change the scene around with a finished batch of candied balls and film the last bit where he’ll present them on a plate with a bit of icing sugar and that’ll be that. Harry doesn’t move from where he’s standing while the crew putter around him and Lou comes over to dust a bit of powder on his forehead and nose, fluff his hair a bit.

He does glance down at Zayn’s mouth, caught between his teeth, a little plump and red too like he’s been biting at it for too long—sort of the way his mouth looks after he’s been kissed thoroughly or he’s been forced to keep himself quiet while Harry sucks on his cock.

Harry adjusts the nude jockstrap he’s wearing underneath the bright green apron that says “Flick the chef’s nipples” on it in gaudy gold letters.

The last scene flies by in a blur of anticipation. He puts a pair of bright marigolds on a plate piled high with toasty-warm balls, drizzled in honey and a smatter of icing sugar and smiles winsomely at the camera. “See, and that’s just the perfect complement to a cool spring day or date, as it were. I would definitely try this at home, guaranteed you won’t be going to bed alone!” He winks and makes sure to take a bite of one of the balls, lick his lips just after and moan as if it’s the most delicious thing he’s ever eaten (which it is but he does put his whole heart and soul into it).

“Don’t forget to tune in next week when I make one of my favourite summer treats: Strawberry Puckered Nipples. And that’s a dish that’s sure to leave everyone a warm and gooey mess at the end of a long day. Everyone likes to suck on a good nipple, don’t they?” He does the suggestively sweet smile that’s been photographed and printed on every bit of merchandise and advertising that comes with the show and waits for Jesy to yell cut.

He relaxes as soon as she does and accepts the gown his wonderful personal assistant, Sarah hands him with a smile and turns to all of the crew. “Thank you, all of you, for today—I really appreciate all the hard work you put into this show.”

He waves at the shouts of “cheers, Harry” and “nice one, today” and makes sure that everyone gets one of the balls wrapped in a serviette to take home with them just like he does every week.

Zayn’s waiting for him in a corner by the window and Harry steps up close. He’s still got that slightly intense and hungry look in his eyes, and he licks his mouth, before he says quite casually, “Are you trying to kill people?”

Harry laughs and crowds Zayn up against the wall. “Maybe.”

Tilting his head to look at him properly, Zayn presses his hands on Harry’s waist underneath the gown, catches a bit of apron and a bit of skin, digs his fingers in just enough to make Harry gasp. “Are you trying to kill me?”

Grinning, Harry does what he’s been waiting to do the whole afternoon and kisses him, frank and sweet, the stickiness from the balls still in his mouth and Zayn laps it up. He pulls back to whisper, “Yes.”

“All right, you two, take it to the dressing room, please—we’ve got young and impressionable eyes in here,” Jesy drawls.

Harry turns to look at her just as he grabs Zayn’s hand. She’s smirking and shaking her head at them like they’re a pair of handsy kids in senior school.

“That’s a good idea, actually.” He starts to drag Zayn towards his private dressing room, one of the perks of working of getting a second-year contract, and calls out, “I’ll see you in a couple of days, Jess.”

She waves her hand dismissively and starts helping her assistant to pack up a camera.

Today, the dressing room smells like roses and vanilla from the candle he left sputtering on the table earlier.

Zayn sniffs at the air. “Smells good in here.”

Harry’s not really interested in talking so he ignores that and pushes Zayn back against the door to kiss him properly like he hadn’t been able to earlier. He gets as good as he gives, Zayn reaches down to pull him close by the arse, opens his legs wider so Harry can slot in between, his teeth rough as he nips at Harry’s lips.

He pulls back and whispers, “Don’t move.”

Zayn whines but does as told. Harry likes that he can do that. That they’ve made the rules of this thing between them and it means that sometimes, Zayn’s the one who bends him over the sheets and slaps his arse until it’s flushed red and aching, and he’s gasping into the wrinkled pillow stuffed into his mouth. And that sometimes _he’s_ the one who gets to hold Zayn still while he drags his fingernails down his side and leaves a trail of red in his wake, and _he_ gets to tease him until he’s a blubbering mess and begging for it.

“You know, the whole time I was filming and you were watching me, all I could think about,” Harry says as he gets down on his knees and yanks at Zayn’s belt. “Was doing this.”

He doesn’t waste any time getting Zayn’s jeans open and pulling them down over his knees, pressing his face right up against the ridge of his cock through his boxers, licking at the damp spot he’s already made.

“Oh god, Harry, please,” Zayn rasps. Harry likes the way Zayn says his name when he’s like this, and enjoys even more, the way he begs.

He pulls Zayn’s underwear down just low enough for his dick to pop out, heavy and dark with want, pre-come slicking up the end. It's a bit unfair that even this part of Zayn incredibly gorgeous, thick and cut, just the right amount of veiny. When Zayn brings his hand down to tangle in his hair, Harry pulls back with a frown. “I told you not to move.”

And Zayn gasps, his cock seems to swell even harder at the hard edge to Harry’s voice—he likes taking orders. Likes being told to hold himself still while Harry drives him to the brink.

“I’m sorry,” he says and he balls up his hands and presses them against the weave of the wooden door behind him. “I’ll be good, I promise.” There’s a flush to the skin at his neck that looks good enough to lick. Maybe later.

Harry rewards him for that by sticking his tongue out and swiping one long stripe from the base to the tip of Zayn’s cock. “You’re so good for me, Zayn, so good.”

And then he rounds his mouth out and takes in as much of Zayn’s cock as he can.

“Oh, _fuck_ , Harry, oh,” he stutters out. And Harry smiles or does the closest approximation to a smile he can manage with a mouthful of cock.

Zayn’s loud in bed, really loud. And Harry sort of knew that already because he remembers back when they roomed together as first years and he’d eavesdropped a couple of times when Zayn jerked himself off on his bunk. No matter how hard he’d try to keep himself quiet, there’d always be the errant moan and repeated grunts, a desperate hiss as he bit into his own fist or perhaps his pillow, and a lot of muffled curses. And Harry hadn’t been immune to bringing himself off to the sound of Zayn because he was a terrible person and it had been pretty fucking hot. He’d never told Zayn that, of course, because that would’ve been weird and as far as keeping secrets from the one person who knows him better than anyone, that one is pretty tame.

But he likes it better now when he can hear Zayn curse and spit and groan without holding back anything. When he can be the one who tugs all of those sounds out of him, like teasing the music out of an instrument. Just the right lick or a scrape of teeth against the papery-soft skin of Zayn’s balls or a bite into the meaty flesh of his thighs, and Zayn basically starts speaking in tongues.

It’s marvellous to watch. And Harry can’t get enough of it.

He can tell by the judder of Zayn’s hips that he’s close, has probably been close from all the time he spent watching Harry do his thing for the show in nothing but an apron and a jockstrap.

He dips lower on his cock until he feels the burn at the back of his throat, and lower still, his gag reflex has always been pretty non-existent and he puts that to good use now.

Zayn hands are splayed out against the door as he tries to hold himself up and follow Harry’s directive not to move.

“Such a good boy,” he mumbles into Zayn’s hip, his fist still working him over. “You can come now.”

And Zayn does, his whole body freezing still on a wheeze as his dick pulses, come trickling out of him and all over Harry's fingers.

 

 

 

 

 

+++

It’s been just over a month. Forty-eight days to be precise, not that Harry’s counting since he and Zayn started this thing. And it’s kind of perfect. Harry’s not sure he’s ever felt closer to Zayn (or anyone really) than he has in the last few weeks.

It’s like it was before but better in a lot of ways.

He hasn’t really fixed Zayn up with anyone. Which makes sense because he wants to make sure Zayn gets his head wrapped around the whole intimacy thing and all that. It’s the best thing to do, he doesn’t want to rush things.

Besides they’re having fun. Really hot, toe-curling fun. Best sex he’s ever had.

Harry thinks that maybe it’s the best he’s ever felt about anything in his life.

And it’s because it’s not just the sex. Which, he loves. And he’s eternally thankful to whatever gods decided he could have it.

It’s the conversations they have, too. Everything from the woefully inane (“You are wrong, Blossom will forever be the best Powerpuff Girl to ever exist.” “I refuse to listen to the superhero opinions of a man who thought that Thor was a kind of deodorant through his entire third year of college.”). To the deep and profound (“I don’t know, I guess I’m always scared that I’ll wake up one day and wonder what the fuck I’ve done with my life. That I’ll be sixty and wrinkled and I won’t have experienced everything I possibly can, that I’ll have wasted it all.” “I’m not sure I’ve ever met anyone who just like—lives as much as you, Harry. I don’t know, I’ve always admired that. Been jealous of it, even. Used to wish I could be half as brave as you.” “Ugh, shut up, you’re making me blush.” “Why don’t you make me shut up….”).

The two of them have always been prime cuddlers. So lots of times, when the air is thick and heavy with the onset of a late summer shower, or when they can hear thunder shatter the sky and rattle the windows, or even when the sun is bright and just sat in the middle of the sky, they lay down wherever they land and chatter lazily until someone has to leave for work or to go home for a proper change of clothes.

He’s always been able to talk to Zayn about most anything, so that closeness has been there for years. But there’s something about touching another person’s dick on the regular that adds a whole new layer of intimacy. Makes it impossible to hide when you’re nothing but skin and skin.

And there are things, moments, questions that they’ve never broached in all the years they've known each other. Like that one night, after Zayn bends him over the dining room table and fucks him, and they’re just dozing, naked and damp and comfortable on the rug in front of his fireplace—Harry does ask.

“Remember that one time I came to yours, it was a few weeks after Perrie left and you were picking yourself up, just a bit.” He searches for the right way to put it and settles on just being plain: “And I walked into the bathroom and you had that bottle of pills in your hand.”

Zayn stiffens, tucked as he is into Harry’s side, but he doesn’t draw away, and says, his voice hushed, “Yeah.”

Harry presses a soft kiss to Zayn’s forehead, just above the cut near his right eyebrow that he got during a reckless drunken skateboarding accident in fourth year, and stumbles on with this conversation that he maybe shouldn’t have even started. “Were you—were you going to do it?”

He remembers it as clearly as if it was yesterday. It had been a miserable, cold London morning. The first time Harry hadn’t woken up in the flat after the Break Up but he’d promised to bring lunch and snacks so Zayn wouldn’t have to go out to the store. He’d called for Zayn while he dumped his packages on the kitchen table and when no answer came, he’d shook off his coat and went up the stairs in search of his quarry.

He’ll probably never forget what it had felt like to walk into the bathroom and see Zayn like that. Everything down to how the smooth wooden door slid against his fingers and the steam still billowing out of the shower. And Zayn, a towel knotted at his waist, while he just stood there, the bottle open, a bunch of pills—surely more than a person could take in even ten doses—scattered all over the sink’s counter.

Harry’d never been so scared in his life.

The kind of fear that stabbed itself through his skin with icicle fingers, and took hold of his heart, turned it cold as stone.

His first instinct had been to yell or rush forward and slap the bottle out of his hands, maybe shout at Zayn if he was thinking what he was probably thinking. _Because how dare he?_

He hadn’t though. He’d just stepped in, cautious, and said his name, “Zayn?”

The look Zayn shot him had been tired and empty but the minute he properly saw Harry, he’d smiled. A real smile that reached his eyes, Harry’d started counting them they were so few and far between, and said, “Missed you this morning—,” after a beat, “Just tossing some of Perrie’s stuff in here, didn’t realise there was so much shit we’d accumulated over the years.”

And Harry hadn’t been able to do much else but sigh in relief, rush forward and just hug him close, say, his voice wet around the edges, “Missed you, too, actually.”

And that had been that. Well, obviously not because Harry still wonders about that morning to this day.

Zayn puts a hand on Harry’s ribcage, where his heart is beating too fast. He lifts up on his elbow, his eyes soft and wilted at the corners, and shakes his head. “No. No—I don’t think so?” He focuses on Harry’s chin and his gaze goes distant for a second. “I mean, for a split-second, when Perrie walked, I did think about it. You know, not for real, just one of those passing thoughts that skids through your head and numbs out.” He leans over to nudge his lips against the shell of Harry’s ear, silky and a little wet from his tongue. “I couldn’t do that, not to myself or to my family, anyone that matters,” he sucks on the lobe as he says that last. “You were there the whole time and you reminded me a lot of what was important even if it looked like I was still, you know, fucked in the head.”

Harry lets out a breath he didn’t even realise he was holding. He doesn't say out loud that he thinks Zayn would've been fine in the end, all by himself. That Zayn's maybe stronger than he even realises sometimes and he loves that about him. Instead, he shifts so he can kiss him full on the mouth. It’s not a gentle kiss or even a nice one. It says a lot of the things that he maybe can’t utter out loud. He crushes Zayn close, bites on his lip until he gets a moan, and bites some more. He doesn’t want to get enough and he thinks he’s never been so hungry to just have someone else beside him, inside him, _with_ him.

They’re both breathless when he pulls back. Zayn doesn’t let him go far, just holds him close, so they’re stealing each other’s oxygen on each inhalation.

“I don’t think I thank you enough for that time.”

“You don’t have—.”

“No, I do, Harry. I do—.”

Harry just smothers anything else Zayn was going to say with his mouth. Thinks that maybe he could do this, just kiss his best friend for the rest of his life, and be perfectly content.

It’s brilliant, all of it honestly.

So _of course_ something would come and fuck it all up.

That something comes in the shape of a blonde, blue-eyed Irishman with a mouth way too big for his own good.

They’re having their usual Friday Night at Niall’s hangout. This time at one of the upscale tapas bars Niall’s just opened up, it’s a little slinkier, the dress code is formal and the cocktails are a bit more colourful and sophisticated.

Harry has to resist the urge to drag Zayn in for an open-mouthed kiss the second he sees him strolling up to the bar in an all-black ensemble, fitted slacks and shirt, velvet ebony waistcoat, and no embellishment except for the chunky silver rings he likes to wear sometimes. Harry’s got a soft spot for those rings, and the way they caught on his skin, cool and metallic, that one time Zayn decided to give him a back massage—that ended up with a full-body massage and the two of them covered in oil and spunk in the middle of Harry’s bed.

Zayn gives everyone a hug the way he usually does. When he gets to Harry, he pauses, as though his first instinct is to kiss, his gaze lingering on Harry’s mouth makes that obvious. Instead, he throws a friendly arm around Harry’s waist and pulls him in for a hug that lasts far longer than the others, and his hand drifts low to squeeze Harry’s bum before he steps back, his eyes smouldering.

Harry’s pretty sure that Zayn’s natural state is The Smoulder so he tries to tell his dick to calm down when it immediately leaps to attention. It doesn’t work of course but he gets an A+ for effort, surely.

To cover up his apparently over-excitable body, Harry hands him his usual glass of Jack on the rocks, and Zayn sends him a sweet smile of thanks. And Harry wonders if he's a bit pathetic that even that makes something coil, soft and heated, in his belly—and it's not sexually either. It's just, it's nice.

“So, lads,” Louis starts them off as he sips on his martini, no olive. “I’ve got news.”

“You’ve gotten a promotion at Radio One?”

“You’re finally going to cut your hair?”

“You’re moving to Australia so you can surf all year-round?”

“You’ve got terminal cancer?”

Louis just rolls his eyes at all their mock questions and barks out a laugh. “Shut it, the lot of you,” taking a deep breath, “Me and El are getting back together.”

You could probably hear a pin drop in the silence that meets his announcement, that is, if they weren’t in the middle of a club with pulsating music.

“Wow,” Liam’s the first to speak. “When did this even happen?”

Louis shrugs. “It’s been happening a while, I guess.” At the upstretched eyebrows he gets, he rushes to explain, “Look, I meant to tell you guys that we were seeing each other again but I just—I wanted to make sure first. That it’d work this time around, y’know?” And there’s a nervous tic to his smile then like he’s waiting for all of them to say something.

The thing with Louis and Eleanor is that out of all of them, they’d been the ones everyone thought would go the distance. They’d dated all throughout university, moved into a flat together afterwards as Eleanor started her job at a publishing house and Louis started up as an intern at Radio One. But then things had just fallen apart. Within a year, they’d started fighting all the time, and they’d broken up.

Louis picked himself up, muddled his way through his twenties, got in on the frenetic rat race at the radio station until he took over Nick Grimshaw’s much-coveted breakfast show, dated around quite a bit too. But Harry’d never felt like Louis had figured out how to be without El quite right.

“So is it—going to work this time?” Niall asks, hesitant.

“I don’t know,” Louis says. “But we—I’d like to try, I guess. And, she makes me happy, you know? Really happy.”

“Then that’s all that matters, mate.” This comes from Zayn, who squeezes his fingers into Harry’s side absently as he says it. “You deserve to be happy.”

Harry raises his glass. “Cheers, then.” He smiles at Louis. “To Louis and El and happiness.”

“Shut up, you cheesy bastard,” is what he gets for his trouble before Louis returns the smile, warm and thankful, and they all drink.

“Speaking of deserving happiness, how’s Project Zayn going, Harry?”

And just like that, the whole night comes crashing down. And Niall doesn’t even know what he’s done.

“Project Zayn?” Zayn himself asks, his eyebrows climbing up on his forehead in confusion.

Niall, who blunders on like a drunkard stumbling in the middle of high traffic hour, says, “Yeah, you know, the whole matchmaking thing to get you dating and laid.”

To anyone else, the tightening around Zayn’s mouth would be imperceptible. But Harry’s had a lifetime to study the minutiae of Zayn’s facial expressions and he knows when Zayn’s annoyed, maybe even angry. Because this was meant to be something of a secret between the two of them—like a lot of other things they’ve kept just for them and now it’s out of the bag.

Before Harry can change the subject, Louis asks, “Hang on, what’s this?”

In that moment, Harry imagines he’s watching someone poke at a shiny balloon repeatedly just for the joy of watching it deflate and shrivel into a bit of gummy rubber on the floor. And there’s nothing he can do to stop it.

Zayn is standing stiff beside him. So Harry says, as off-handed as he can manage, “Oh, a couple of months ago, I agreed to set Zayn up on a few dates, you know. Just to, um, get him up and running again, so to speak.”

Louis and Liam look positively gleeful at this. And Harry knows it’s because all of them have been worried, at one time or another, about Zayn getting back on his feet in the love department. But their excitement seems a bit crass and invasive right then.

“Oh, who are you fixing him up with this week?”

_Absolutely no one._

Zayn takes a gulp of his whiskey and asks, his tone arch, “Yeah, Haz, who are you fixing me up with this week?”

And Harry wants to yell something unreasonable like, _You’re not allowed to date anyone!_

“I’m—,” he starts.

Niall interrupts, “Because if you’ve run out of people, my manager at this bar, Leigh-Anne would be pretty perfect,” he gestures at a woman with a cascade of dark hair to her shoulders and an incandescent smile who’s chatting to a few customers while she mixes their drinks at the bar.

“Oh, she’s hot,” Louis says and Liam grunts in agreement.

Harry just wants to stamp his foot. But that might come across as childish. And bizarre since he’s the one who came up with this stupid plan in the first place, to set Zayn up with loads of strange people. When he really just wants to set Zayn up with himself and—

_Oh, shit._

So he says, in as reasonable a tone as he can manage, “Yeah, she seems like she could work.” And he only says it to get Niall to shut up but the look on Zayn’s face tells him he’s fucked up. Big time.

There’s none of the warmth Harry’s used to being on the receiving end of. He’s stone-faced and he drops his arm from Harry’s waist, leaving a band of cold in its wake. There’s something glittering in his eyes, betrayal, maybe but also disappointment. As if Harry’s surprised even him by doing this.

Harry’s heart drops down to somewhere below his feet. And he feels like he can’t breathe.

Before he can say something, drop to his knees, beg forgiveness, Zayn drains his glass and says with as fake a smile as Harry’s ever seen on his face, “You know what, lads, I think I’m gonna have an early night, tonight. Got to get up early to get home to Bradford in the morning.”

And that’s the first Harry’s even heard of that plan. They were supposed to meet up to hang out this weekend, have a picnic on Harry’s balcony and maybe experiment with a bit of exhibitionism.

Zayn nods at Niall. “Make sure to get me Leigh-Anne’s number, mate. She looks like she’d be a lot of fun.” He doesn’t even glance at Harry as he turns around and walks out the bar. It’s like Harry’s not even there.

The others don’t notice anything amiss and start chatting about something or other. Harry doesn’t join in though. He puts down his drink and looks down at his shoes. He rubs a hand at his chest, the hurt burning there, burning him up from the inside, and blinks away at the wetness in his eyes.

 

 

 

 

 

+++

When he opens the door to an unamused Niall, the next Sunday, he looks a mess, his hair is out of whack, greasy and standing out on all ends, he hasn’t showered since the day before and there are bags under his eyes from all the hours of sleep he hasn’t had, all he says is, “If you say I told you so, I will kick you in the shin.”

Niall rolls his eyes at that and shoves his way in. Harry ignores him and stumbles his way to the kitchen to put on a pot of coffee.

“You didn’t come by the bar on Friday.”

“I was busy.”

“We all missed you.”

And Harry feels a flutter. Because, did the ‘we’ include everyone—did it include Zayn?

“Was Zayn there?” he asks pathetically.

And the way Niall’s eyes light on that, Harry knows he’s given himself away good and proper.

“All right, Harry, what did you do?”

“Nothing!” Harry says. “Why did Zayn say something?”

Niall throws his hands up. “Zayn didn’t show up either.”

“Oh,” Harry says, disheartened. He lurches to the fridge and gets out a jug of fresh cream, just for something to do with his hands. Being still gives the thoughts clamouring about in his brain room to get louder and he doesn’t really want to think too deeply about anything right then.

“Did you guys break up or something—or end whatever the fuck you’ve been doing with each other the last month or so?”

And, well, that’s bluntly put in the way that only Niall can. Harry has an idea that Niall thinks he’s dumber than a bag of rusty nails when he asks, “Wait, you guys knew?”

Niall scoffs, “The two of you aren’t as subtle as you apparently think you are, y’know? Like, Zayn couldn’t keep his hands off you. And I know Zayn’s touchy feely with all of us, but he’d stand for an hour in the pub with his hand rubbing your arse like he owned it and whispering sweet whatevers in your ear. It was awful.” He shudders in disgust. “And then you’d basically be dry humping him up against the counter like the two of you weren’t in a public space. And, really, wandering off to the toilet and coming back with a hickey the size of Ireland was a dead giveaway, mate.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah. Oh.” Niall accepts the cup of coffee, with the dash of hazelnut he likes, that Harry gives him with a nod of thanks. “We was all placing bets on when the two of you would realise that we all knew what was up. Louis reckoned that we’d walk in on you fucking on Zayn’s kitchen counter and you’d still try to play it off like nothing was going on…. I’m starting to think he was right.”

Harry sighs and throws himself into one of his kitchen stools, a dejected hunch to his shoulders. 

"He went on that date, y'know."

"What date?" Harry's almost afraid to hear the answer, he picks a sugar cube out of the bowl that often sits in the middle of his kitchen table and crumbles it in his fingers. He doesn't quite care that he's making a mess right then, he's made a mess of a lot of things.

"With Leigh, the hot manager from one of my bars."

It hurts is what it does. But Harry asks anyway, "And, how did that go?"

"Terribly shit, actually."

His head shoots up so quickly, he gets a crick in the neck. "What? Why?"

"Not sure of the details but all she said he was dead boring, no sense of humour at all. He looked like he wanted to kill himself the entire time, managed to spill red wine on her trousers and that she never wants me to try to match-make her with one of my friends ever again."

"Well, she's wrong," Harry bursts out, feeling weirdly offended on Zayn's behalf. "He's not boring. Zayn was probably just tired, you know how he gets. He's hilarious when people give him a chance. That plus he was probably nervous. He's always clumsy when he's—." And Harry knows he's being defensive and probably a bit over the top with it too judging from the knowing lift of Niall's eyebrows—but he can't help it. He never has been able to when it comes to Zayn.

“Don't shoot the messenger, mate," Niall says, holding his hands up. "Besides, I think he only did it to prove some sort of point. Now, do you feel like telling me what happened, exactly?”

“I—.” Harry’s not even sure where to start. So he begins with the simplest, the one thing he knows for certain, “I fell in love with him.”

Niall’s response to his announcement isn’t what Harry expects. In fact, he’d probably have understood a punch in the nose as opposed to the raucous shout of laughter he gets in its place. Niall realises that Harry’s looking at him, a bit put out, and manages to choke himself quiet. “I’m sorry, it’s just—wait. You’re just realising that now?”

Harry’s face falls. “What do you mean ‘now’?”

With a helpless shrug, Niall says, “I don’t know, just, we’ve all sort of thought the two of you were madly in love with each other for years. Even Trisha’s thought that for a while now. Why do you think she likes to pretend you’re her favourite?”

And now that someone’s said it out loud, it all seems very obvious now. Everything from the moment he stood by as one of Zayn’s four groomsmen and watched him get married to someone else, and instead of being purely ecstatic to see his best friend so happy, he’d sat alone at a table and gotten very slowly and deliberately drunk while he watched the wedding party dance around him in a nauseating kaleidoscope of colour and laughter. To that time Zayn came back from his honeymoon to find Harry’d gotten the debilitating frog-flu he seemed to get once every year during his time away. Zayn had barely been back from Barbados more than a day before he’d shown up with a plastic bag full of pharmacy-bought medicine and a tan. As if it was perfectly normal for a newly-wedded groom to spend two nights with his best friend because they were sick when his wife was waiting for him at home.

So maybe he’d been an idiot. Maybe they’d both been.

“Look,” Niall says, “I don’t need to hear the whole breakdown, I especially don’t need to hear about the sex parts. I just have to say though and don’t kick me for this, I did tell you this would end badly.”

Harry opts to throw a sugar cube at Niall instead of a kick and calls it even.

“But it doesn’t have to, all right. First and foremost, you and Zayn? You’re friends, best of even. I'd fight you on that and Louis and Liam will too, but whatever. And that comes first, always has.”

That ache in his chest comes back tenfold. Because this week, all ten days of it, has probably been the longest he and Zayn have spent without even talking to each other on the phone. It’s been lonely and wretched, and he’s sat with this Zayn-shaped hole inside of him, completely paralysed by his own sadness.

He feels a tear, and then another leak out of his eyes and he looks up at Niall, helpless. “I just—I can’t lose him, Niall, even if he just wants to be friends, I’ll take it. I’ll take anything.”

Niall drags him for a hug, pats him on the back and Harry tries not to blubber like a fool. “I’m not sure Zayn wants to be ‘just friends’ with you, Haz. I don’t look at my ‘just friends’ the way he looks at you—mainly because that would be creepy and incestuous, and I’m not into that.”

And Harry’s scared to hope too much only to be disappointed. But it’s there, fragile and impossible anyway.

 

 

 

 

 

+++

So, in the end, Harry doesn’t do the common-sense thing and run straight to Zayn’s house to declare his undying love like they do in the movies with the hopes that it’ll all end in a satisfyingly dramatic kiss and maybe hot sex on Zayn’s living room floor.

Instead, he bakes.

There’s nothing in the world that calms him as much as the stretch and give of dough in his hands, or the smell of nutmeg and caramel and melting chocolate chips warming up in an oven, or even the easy rhythm of scrubbing a baking tray clean when he’s done. Even when he was a child, he used to love it—a good thing seeing as his mum would’ve sooner gotten them store-bought biscuits than be seen standing anywhere near an oven. But here, navigating the kitchen that he knows so well he could do it blindfolded, he’s in his element. It clears his head in a way little else could.

The sum and total of it all is that he loves Zayn. Really, loves him. Stupid loves him. And it’s clear that very little in the world makes sense to him without the thought of loving Zayn with everything he’s got. And even if Zayn doesn’t want him, he’ll probably go on loving him until the day he dies because he doesn’t quite know how to be Harry without it anymore. He doesn’t want to be.

He’s made three kinds of muffins, all of them Zayn’s favourites. Pumpkin nut and macadamia, chocolate chip and hazelnut, and cinnamon crunch. He gets one of his favourite wicker baskets, lines it with checked disposable paper and puts the muffins in carefully. He'd showered already while the muffins were baking, so he just grabs his keys and the basket, and opens his front door to go find—

“Zayn?”

Zayn’s hand is raised up to knock and he hits Harry’s chest instead by mistake. He steps back, a little nervous before he eyes the basket Harry’s holding, his face falling. “Oh, are you—um, are you going somewhere? I could come back—.”

He looks set to run down the driveway and do just that but Harry shakes his head quickly.

“No! I mean, no, I just, I was coming to see you actually?”

Zayn swallows. “Me?” He looks a little wan, even for someone who spends their time sitting in front of a computer indoors. He's shoved a beanie over the back of his head, heedless of the season and when Harry looks down to the wrinkled denim shirt he's wearing, it's unevenly buttoned, like he put it on in a rush and dashed out the door. It's endearing is what it is.

Harry offers a crooked smile. “I, um, I had this big plan to give you some muffins,” he holds up the basket.

“Give me some of your muffins, huh?” Zayn says with a chuckle, and he’s got that playfully suggestive dip to his voice like he had all those weeks ago.

Harry laughs a bit and then says, earnest and uncharacteristically grave for him, “I think I’d give you just about anything of mine you wanted. If you asked….”

Zayn takes a step forward, breathes in deeply as he does so like he’s girding himself for something, and he says, “I’m asking you—now.”

“For what?”

He searches for the words, before he takes another step forward. He’s so close now that he has to tilt his head back a bit to look at Harry, and if he wanted, Harry could count his eyelashes.

“I—well, I love you. And it’s not just because of how you saved me after the divorce—and you did save me, Harry. _You_ did. It’s because I’ve got you inside of me, here.” He points at his heart and then his head and then his belly. “And I can’t get you out. No matter how hard I try, I just. I keep coming back to you and I want to. Want to come back to you. If you'll have me.”

Before he can do something silly like cry, Harry leans over the few inches that separate their mouths and kisses him. It’s soft and buoyant, and unbearably sweet.

“I sort of love you too.” The smile that splits Zayn’s face is the closest to what daybreak would look like in human form Harry’s ever seen. He resists the urge to lean down and taste it, but only just.

"Really?"

Harry does kiss him then, quick and the barest hint of the coffee Zayn probably drank a few hours before. He says, “I think I’ve probably been in love with you from the minute I saw you standing outside our dorm room in first year in those dreadful drop-crotch trousers you used to wear all the time."

"Oh god, you always did have rubbish taste," Zayn jokes. There's a suspicious shimmer in his eyes though.

Harry lifts his hand up and presses his thumb against the scratch of Zayn's scruff, leans in until every word is an almost-kiss. "And I want you. All the horrible bits and everything else—I want all of you.”

Zayn’s phone bleeps loudly right then and kills the moment so thoroughly they both burst into laughter.

“That’s probably Louis texting me to find out if I’ve gotten my head out of my arse and come to see you yet.”

Harry pulls him inward for a hug, rests his head on Zayn’s shoulder and just breathes him in. “I had Niall over here earlier telling me to do the same thing.”

“Remind me to send all three of our best friends a fruit basket at the end of the year.”

“We could give them some of the muffins,” Harry says as he sighs happily at Zayn nuzzling his throat, the wet slide of his tongue just there.

Zayn pulls back with an affronted frown. “We’re not giving them any of _my_ muffins.” He spoils the effect by grinning right after and then he says, “I’m not sure it’s legal or normal to be this happy.”

Harry laughs and opens his mouth to nip at Zayn’s stubbly chin, feels the prick of those short hairs against his lips, he loves that. “I’m sure you’ll be back to brooding soon enough—but I don’t mind that. And I can always give you a blow job to get you up again.”

He yelps as Zayn yanks him through his door, picks up the basket of muffins along the way, and says, “What if I told you I was feeling kind of broody now?”

 

 

 

 

 

  
**post scriptum**

The BBC Lifestyle’s end of year Christmas party is usually the type of shit-show you only attend to get the free booze and nothing else. This time, Harry drags all of the lads along with him.

“Now you can stop whingeing about the four of us drinking you out of house and home, Niall,” Louis says. He’s got his arm around Eleanor and they look good together. Harry hasn’t seen Louis so calm and relaxed and just content in a long time, it’s nice. He’s also finally cut his hair, which is an even better look on him.

“The lot of you thirsty twats will be back in a month to drink my liquor on the cheap, so no, I won’t stop whingeing, thank you very much.”

Liam, who’s got a five months pregnant Jade on his arm, a possessive hand on her belly while he whispers something in her ear that makes her smile and lean into him as she sips on her alcohol-free cocktail, looks up to say, “Ah, come on, Nialler, you love when we drink your liquor on the cheap.”

They all laugh then because if there’s anything Niall’s good at, it’s throwing a party. And he’s never stingy with it either.

Harry’s notched his hand at the small of Zayn’s back and if they were standing any closer they’d probably be climbing each other. He ducks his head down to whisper, predictably, “Can’t wait to tie you up with that ribbon you’ve put around your neck and eat your arse out.”

Zayn promptly chokes on his whiskey ginger and shoots Harry a dangerous look before he mumbles into his cheek, “When you’re done, I’ve got a better ways to use that scarf you’re wearing. Might try gagging you since you like to talk so much shit.”

“Ten more minutes?” Harry rumbles and the hand he’s got on Zayn’s back slips down to grope his bottom. Zayn just grins. "I'll give you fifteen if you let me blindfold you."

“Oh for god’s sake, you two,” a strident voice rings out, “Haven’t we talked about keeping that gross PDA to a minimum?”

Jesy, who looks like a punk rock Christmas pixie brought to life—which shouldn’t be attractive but somehow with her thigh-high boots, wavy dark hair and candy-cane lips, she makes it work, joins the circle.

Harry can’t even be bothered to look contrite as he makes introductions, she’s only met Zayn and Louis out of all his friends. And she and Jade apparently know each other from a vocal performance programme back in university.

He’s just about to continue introductions, when Niall steps forward and takes Jesy’s hand in a firm, overly-enthusiastic handshake and then brings it up to his mouth so he can kiss her knuckles, “I’m Niall, Niall Horan.”

Jesy raises her eyebrows and pulls her hand out of his grasp. “Nice to meet you.”

He’s a few centimetres shorter than her in her boots but this isn’t—and hasn’t ever been—the sort of thing to deter Niall. Harry’s kind of surprised that he’s managed to carry out the entire exchange without talking straight at Jesy’s breasts.

Niall’s always had a pretty slick way with the ladies that not even Harry’s ever been able to quite understand. It’s something to do with his accent and the blue eyes and the slightly crooked smile possibly. But none of that works when he asks Jesy with a charming grin, “Care to dance?”

Jesy looks at him like he might possibly be a flea or an excitable court jester. “Yeah, not really, love.” And then she sashays off through the throng of party guests with a wave to the rest of them.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you strike out so fast, Nialler, losing your touch?” Louis remarks.

Niall shakes his head, not disheartened in the slightest as he watches Jesy’s bottom in the dress she’s wearing unabashedly, a dazed expression on his face. “Oh don’t worry, mate. I’ve got this.”

“I don’t think she’s the kind of woman you can just get, Niall,” Harry says. Jesy’d rip Niall to shreds without even blinking and he’s almost worried for his friend’s health.

“Es tu, Brute?” he says jokingly. “I said don’t worry because, I'm telling you now, I’m going to marry that woman.” And he says it so confidently that Harry’s a bit afraid for the both of them. He polishes off his drink and hands it to Louis before he steps off in the direction Jesy took. “I’ll see you bastards on New Year’s.”

“That’s not going to end well,” Zayn murmurs at Niall’s retreating back.

Harry smiles. Because Niall’d said the same thing about him and Zayn, and he’d been wrong. Thankfully so.

Nina Simone’s Wild is the Wind comes on over the speakers, and Harry recognises it from that first night months ago when he and Zayn first slept together. _You kiss me, with your kiss my life begins_ , he mouths the words in a whisper that Zayn hears, a smile twitches at his own mouth. And Harry can’t resist, he tilts his head a bit to catch Zayn’s lips in a kiss, slow and searching, the sharp tang of whiskey on his tongue.

“I think you should take me home and have your way with me, Malik,” he says.

Zayn nods, puts his drink down on the nearest table, and he does just that.

 

 

 

 

 

# fin

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading. Feedback is really cool and ever appreciated.
> 
> Note #2: So this story can't actually be put forward as my big bang story unless I fail at finishing the other. My actual big bang is currently sitting on my computer at about 55,000 words or 70,000 words depending on which draft I'm looking at. It's a bit mammoth. Things haven’t worked out, I’ve had beta problems (thanks Jamie for initial feedback and Marissa coming to my rescue) and writing problems, and it’s just not in a place to be posted and shared and I don't wish to muck this up. I can be really pernickety about that sort of thing, I’m afraid. So, if you’ve liked this story, I'm thankful. If you feel like lending editing skills to the other one (it’s just too long for me to foist it on one person, I feel), hit me up.


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